Run the Valley 5k Race Report and Week 6 in Reverse

This weekend, I ran in my first race of the year—the Run the Valley 5k in Golden Valley.  Katie had planned on doing this too, but her shin and ankle area (henceforth known as her "shankle") has been acting up.  Since her first triathlon of the season is next weekend, she decided it was best not to test her shankle so close to the race.  But, Katie came to the race with me and was a great spectator.

When deciding which race to do this weekend, I noted that this race was a bit pricey at $25.  I decided to do it nonetheless.  All this would have worked fine had I pre-registered, but, since I was pre-occupied with some news on Wednesday night, I missed the online registration window.  Thus, my cost was $35 on race day.

My hope for this race was to beat my time in the Monster Dash last October (23:16).  I felt it was pretty doable.

It was a cool, overcast morning—perfect for a run.  I warmed-up, stretched, and got ready to run.  It wasn't going to be huge race, but there was a sizeable amount of people doing the 5k (there was also a 10k and 5k walk starting after my race).  I lined up about 25 people back from the starting line.  The I never heard them start the race because everybody was talking quite a bit, but off we went.

Mile 1: 7:12  Just past the start, I hadn't started scanning the spectators yet, but then all of a sudden I hear Phil and Katie cheering.  Katie managed to snap this picture of my backside heading up the hill.

I'm in the blue shirt and red shorts

I was feeling good, but this mile was mostly uphill, so I may have pushed a bit too hard.

Mile 2: 7:36  I got a bit of a side cramp at the start of this mile, so I worked it out with my breathing, and got back going.  There weren't many spectators on the course, so it was fairly quiet until…

Mile 3: 7:29  Just at the start of this mile, we were running down the bike lane of a busier street (by busy, I mean I saw 10 cars go by instead of 2).  All of a sudden, I hear "GO MATT" being shouted at me from the window of a car right next to me.  It was Phil and Jamie, with Jamie shouting.  It startled me, but it was really good to hear because there was zero crowd support out here (well, there was zero crowd).  So thanks guys!  I started heading toward the finish, and at the last intersection, Katie was there.  She managed to get a flip-book of pictures.  Here's one of them:

Mile 3.1: 0:40  This last bit involved me getting passed.  Then we rounded the corner with about 50 meters to go.  I saw that I was still under 23 minutes on the clock.  So I gave the kick everything I had left, passed the guy back, and crossed the line.

Total Time: 22:59

So, I beat my monster dash time by 17 seconds, which makes this my fastest 5k since high school.  So I'll call this a PHS (post high school) PR.  My all-time PR for a 5k is 20:03, which I plan on beating some day.

All in all, a good race.

Week in Reverse

Highlights from week 6 (I'm halfway done with this training program!)

Thursday, April 8: Rest day.  I took Thursday off in preparation for my race.  It was a day where I could have really used a run, but I rested anyway.

Wednesday, April 7: 5 x hill.  My last set of hill repeats!  I don't mind hills, but I'm excited to switch my Wednesday workouts from hills to intervals.  I'll be at the track every Wednesday starting this week.

Monday, April 5:  Treadmill and Strength Exercises.  The treadmill still sucks, but I decided to try something new: a foam roller.  This painful little foam cylinder is magic.  It hurts like the dickens when using it to knead out the tight spots in my muscles, but I felt great afterwards.  I'm planning on getting my own, but The Running Room is out of them now.  I'll give a more detailed post on this once I can get my hands on one.