I did the 5 KM Santa run this morning. My goal was to break 20 minutes. I had two 5 km races this year where I had the identical time of 20:01 and it was heart breaking not to come in under 20 minutes. 19 minutes and whatever, even 19:59, sounds so much faster than 20. I didn't realize it before I signed up, but the course was not a measured and the race did not have timing chips. It was fairly informal. It started to snow lightly this morning and I was tired when I got up, the heart rate was a little higher than normal, but I went anyway. The streets were fairly clean, but most of the run was on a snowy trail. I figured it was not going to be easy to break 20 minutes because of the lack of shoe grip.
When the race went off I was with the leaders and was in 5th place. Early on the leader missed the turn, poor directions by volunteers and we had to back track about 100 meters. For the first time I ran with my Garmin GPS and an iPod. I went hard from beginning. At times my pace was in the 3:44 per kilometer range. For the first time, since I was setting PR's in my 20's my breathing was laboured and I was gasping for air at times and on steep uphills was closing my eyes to summon up strength. I couldn't catch the 3rd and 4th place guys, they were under 18 years old, but if the race was 10km I would have caught them, they were fading at the end. I finished in 5th place overall and the winner was 18 years old and second place was 36 years old. The winner beat me by about 90 seconds. 3rd and 4th place were under 18 years old. Not a bad race for an old guy. I finished in 19:11 with even going off course, but the course was short. According to my GPS it was only 4.71 km. So after I crossed the finish line I kept running around the parking lot until I hit 5 km, which took me 19:56. I did it!!! I broke 20 minutes.
5 KM Race - 6:25 per mile pace /3.59 per km pace
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