New Haven

Now that I was back to work, I didn't run all week. And so it had been 8 days since I ran, when I went up to New Haven for the 20K.

Got there a little later this year - but could still find parking on the street less than 5 minutes away. So different than NY. And as always, it was absolutely beautiful weather. Even though it's a little bit of a trek, I really do love this race. (Though I wish it was a half marathon, not a 20K. And a medal would be nice - I could entice some more friends to train for it I think. But anyway...)


(Is it just me that sees the heart in the course map? As in "I <3 New Haven Road Race"!)

With my run/walking I've not been able to get below a 10 minute mile. My goal for today was to try and get below a 10 minute pace. To do that I'd have to keep my walk breaks short.

The first few miles were ok. I tried to stay slow, but as I always do in races, I was a little faster than I thought. Under 9 minute miles. At 3 miles I took a break at a water station. After walking for about 30 to 40 seconds, I started running again. I think the little break helped, and it didn't really slow me down much at all.

I can't really remember when I took walk breaks, but I think it was something like 3 miles, 6 miles, 9 miles, and 11.5 miles. All were under a minute. This is way better than what I've been doing in training. Ok fine, I feel it today. But it was good to know that I could do this in a race situation.

One thing I have to admit, is that about 4 or 5 miles in I couldn't imagine making it to the end. Let alone twice the distance for a marathon! But somehow I made it through. And I felt a little better as time went on. (Though I still wouldn't have wanted to run another 14 miles!)



My splits ended up as:
9:03
8:51
8:45
8:49
8:43
8:54
9:02
9:35
9:09
9:46
9:17
9:12
3:30

It's hard to even see the walk breaks in there. I think after each walk break, I picked up the pace a little. Not on purpose, but the time seemed to almost work out for each split. I was very proud not to have any split over 10 minutes.

Final time was 1:52:42. For a 9:04 pace. I was really happy with this performance. I'm not even close to the shape I was in 2 years ago, which is a little sad. (For comparative purposes, I ran a 1:34:02 in 2007, for a 7:34 pace. Hard to believe.) But for the condition I'm in now, I was happy with my performance. And I feel a little better about running a marathon in 8 weeks. (Though not completely comfortable with that idea yet either.)

After the race we hung out with some of the old blogger crowd. Still kind of funny how a few years ago everyone seemed like "internet people" only. Now we can find each other in the crowd and hang out. It's nice.

Training over the next month will be hard. Next week I have a wedding, and then 4 weeks in a row of Jewish Holidays on the weekend. I'm a little worried about how to fit in the long runs - particularly since I don't really do short runs! It's going to take some more sacrifice than I've been making. That's for sure.