It's over, man. Let her go.

Missed running yesterday due to work and family demands, so I was determined to run today.  Last week was pretty good and I needed to build on that.  So, I decided to run about 6mi and I headed out the river trail.  Nice day today, not too humid or hot.  I had brought clothes in yesterday to run, but since I didn't, I left them at work.  The only problem was that I was only planning on doing 3mi max yesterday and so the heavy cotton t-shirt and cotton socks weren't ideal for today's run.

Splits:  8:22, 8:18, 8:35, 8:45, 8:51, 9:13, 10:50, 8:51 (.16mi)

I wanted to average about 8:50-9:00 and just keep it easy.  I headed out the river trail to the 40th street bridge, which is the 3mi turn around.  I knew the trail ended about there (based on looking at Google Maps), but as I got to the bridge, I noticed a biker coming out of a woody area about 200m further up.  I decided to investigate since a longer trail would be cool.  I ran for another .5mi or so before the trail ended at the access road that runs beside the train tracks.  I decided that 7mi was more than enough today and so I left the access road to be explored another day.

There was construction on the trail where they had some temporary fencing to keep us runners/bikers from coming into their construction zone.  They're so possessive!  The crane and the heavy equipment was really cool, but I had to keep going.  I guess my doorag didn't pass for a hard hat.  After I got past the construction area around the 31st St bridge, I run past the Crew storage/arena/offices/whatever as they were pulling a dragon boat out.  That was pretty cool, but the little high school kids there were little _____ and as I was running past they pushed another kid into me.  Obviously not from MY kid's school district.  I think I held my tongue, but I may have let something slip.  Anyways, I kept going.

On the way back, the jerks were gone and as I got to the construction area, I continued to press on.  After about 150m, I looked up and started wondering why the crane was in the trail.  That's when it dawned on me that I was supposed to go between the orange jersey barriers, not into the area marked "construction zone - keep out."  I'm slow like that.  So I had to stop the watch, jog back around the jersey barriers, and down the trail starting the watch where I had my awakening.  I ran until 6.2mi then I took a little walking break (blister had set in) and chatted with a fellow Highmark employee.  He was a bit older and was kinda walk/running.  After a little bit, I said adios and jogged it back in.

It was a good run, aside from the blisters.  Those will heal though and I'll live to run another day.  :-)  I think I've got my daughter on board for running the 5k on Friday night.  I've been kind of wishy-washy about it since it's a tough(er) course and although it will be a PR, I had hoped to set a respectable PR on my first 5k.  If I finish under 28:00 I'll be happy.  lol

Since I had an awakening today, I don't know if anyone has ever been to "The Awakening" statue in Washington DC.  It's killer!  They've actually moved it from where it was in DC to Maryland, but it's still cool.  More cool in DC...  Here's a few pictures of it from our last trip in 2009 to the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC.

Yep, that's me sitting on the dude's head.

The family chillin' on the hand.  It's hard to get a full picture of the whole sculpture, so you'll have to piece it together in your mind.  :-)

This one is a good one of the upper body.

Me sitting on the knee.  It's actually quite a little challenge to get up there.  You gotta run and climb up the side of the lower leg, then claw your way to the top.

And finally, my big dude sitting on top of the big toe.

That gives you pictures of all the pieces of the sculpture.  Have fun piecing them together.  :-)  If you ever get to DC or the Maryland suburbs, you've got to go see this thing.  It's awesome!

Not a long run today since I only had about 45 minutes to get my workout in.  I hopped on a treadmill, warmed up for a couple minutes, then set the treadmill to a 9% incline and ran 1.2 miles at 9:40 pace.  That was a killer on the quads & lungs, but a good workout.  I then ran another mile or so at an 8:50 pace and had to call it a workout.  Stretched and got back to my desk just in time for my meeting.  Whew!

Argh, awful sleep last night!  I couldn't fall asleep until after 3am and then had to be up before 6am.  Work was crazy busy and didn't get much eating done today either...no time. 

I took back my Fast Running book to the library (2 days overdue - shame on me!) and then just ran from there.  I'm about 95% sure I'll be running the 5k tomorrow evening so I decided to take it nice and easy tonight.  I think I did OK with that.  HR remained nice and low most of the run, then I ran about 1/2 of a long hill and jogged/walked the rest of it.  <Spoiler Alert for my quads> I've got a nice long hill at the end of the race tomorrow.  Shhhh!  Don't ruin the surprise for my quads! They're going to be sooo excited!  LOL

Anyways, just wanted to get a few miles in.  If my daughter decides to run it tomorrow as well, I'll probably keep her company for the first 1/2 to maybe 3/4 of a mile since it will be fairly flat, but after that (or 7:00, whichever comes first), I'll need to leave her and start cruising.  The course isn't a fast one with a 1.25 mile long hill at the end (370' elevation gain) to the finish, so I'm not really worrying about setting some fast PR.  It will be my first official 5k, so any time is a PR for me.  I've run the course in 27:11 on a training run, so I hope to finish under 28:00 with daddy-daughter time, or closer to 26:00 if I don't wait for my daughter.  25:00 would be awesome, but I don't know if the course will allow me that time this time around.  Definitely next year...

I told my daughter I'd pay 1/2 the fee if she paid the other half since she hasn't trained for it.  She just wants to do it...I think she wants the t-shirt.  :-)  I haven't told her yet, but based on the last 3 years of results, she could place in her AG...if she just finishes.  Last year was the only year where there were more than 3 in her AG.  If that happens again this year, she probably wouldn't place.  But, pretty cool to AG place in your first ever 5k!

I knew I'd be able to run tonight so I didn't stress about it during the day, but I did get a chance to be King Road ID!  The Bike-Pgh.com folks came and put on a bike safety course for people that do or want to commute to work.  My only spare hour just happened to align with their presentation so I dropped in.  Lots of good information, nice maps of the best roads to ride on with indicators to show the steepness of the hills, etc.  Great stuff.  They talked about safety and having ID on you, but didn't say anything about RoadID, so I did.  Of course, I had mine on since I wear it everywhere.  Never know at my age when you're just going to keel over!  That was the first they had heard of RoadID, so it was good to educate them and my co-workers.

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Yummmm!

This race was a great one.  Not only did I PR (first 5k so far), but my daughter also ran her first road race ever (she PR'd as well :-)!  She did great for her first race finishing in 47:31.  I am very proud of her.  She hasn't trained at all so her goal was to finish and enjoy doing it.  She did both!  Pre-race photo:

We hadn't pre-registered, so we got there plenty early.  Since Annalee hadn't trained for it, I told her she had to pay 1/2 the fee as her punishment.  It was a pretty cheap race, so she was happy to pony it up, especially when she saw the very cool shirts they were giving out.  :-)  She has 3 race shirts now (one she volunteered at, one she got because they had extras and she had come to that 10k with me, and this one she earned).  She wanted to have 4 race shirts to take to EFY in July, but I don't think there's another 5 or 10k in the next couple weeks near us.

We talked about our strategy before we began the race and I decided to run with her until about the .5mi mark when I would then start cruising.  Once I finished, I'd jog back to find her and would help bring her in.  We talked about the course and how the strategy would be to take the first mile easy, then stay in control on the down hill and not try and go too fast, then tackle the hill the best we could.  I thought it would be cool to get a picture of her at the finish line, so I agreed to carry her cell phone on the condition that it was on complete silence so I didn't get distracted by the buzzing or sound from texts from one of her friends every 3 mins during the run. haha

We started about 3/4 of the way back.  There were 350 runners this year (their 15th year) so it's a pretty small race, but it's nice and well organized.  Weather was great and it's through a park setting so it's beautiful as well.  The race started and it took us a little while to get to the starting line and down the one side of the street since it's quite narrow.  The groups of runners in front of us were slow and there was really no way around them without being rude.  Once we hit the .4mi we began up the first hill to the observatory.  Annalee slowed down to a walk so we bumped fists and I told her I'd see her at the end.  At this point, I had lost some fairly significant time, but knowing that I'd PR no matter what, I really didn't care.  I passed her on my way back down from the observatory and she looked like she was doing OK.

I had questioned the length of the course since when I had run the course a month ago as a test, it measured a little over 3.2 mi.  They had two water stations - one at 1mi and another at 2mi that gave out splits.  My Garmin had registered 1.1 mi at the first water stop, so I kinda figured my assumption was right.  At the 2.0 mi mark, it was right on. Weird!  It was about 3.15 mi at the finish, so who knows.  After the first mile, the course is completely tree lined with heavy coverage - especially the last mile, so my Garmin would show some erratic paces and that could account for the distance discrepancy as well, I suppose.

Garmin Splits:  9:44, 7:44, 8:43, 0:46 (0.1mi)

After leaving Annalee, the hill up to the Observatory was narrow and they had cones down the middle to allow for 2-way traffic.  Not until I got up and down from there did it open up to where I wasn't having to weave in and out, etc.  This was about the 0.9 mile point.  I bypassed the water stations since I wasn't going to waste time on a short run like that.  Once I got past the first mile, it's downhill for the next mile.  I tried to hold back some and just kinda cruised down.  Everyone knew what was coming the last 1.1 miles, so I think everyone was kind of holding back.  I had maybe a handful of people pass me after that first mile, but I caught every one of them in the first half of the final climb.  The last 1.1 miles is just a long hill.  Not particularly steep, just a long incline.

The hill is where people started to drop off.  I started far enough back that I knew I'd be passing more than being passed, but I also knew that the hill would slow a lot of runners down.  It slowed me too, but I was quite happy with my ability to keep pushing and keeping a good steady pace all the way up.  The 8:14 pace is quite good for me on a hill like that.  I actually thought I was more around the 9:00 pace and the Garmin wasn't much help at this point pace wise.  I encouraged a lot of runners as I passed them on the way up and I think they appreciated of that.

I thought I had another corner, but then I saw the parking area and was surprised to be so close!  Crap!  I kicked it to the finish and wished I had pushed a little harder on the hill to get closer to 27:00, but I finished strong and that was important to me.  After finishing and as I was walking down to meet Annalee, I had someone tell me how I kicked butt on the hill.  She had tried to hang on to me from the bottom, I guess, but after 0.5mi she said she had to slow down.  She was impressed I could keep a steady pace all the way up.  That felt good to hear that.  :-)

I finished (actually 27.29 but the timer dude marked me as 27:31) and then started walking back to find Annalee.  I kept telling everyone how much further they had to go since I had my Garmin running.  They seemed to appreciate that since after the 2mi aid station, there weren't any more markers.  I found Annalee with about .5mi left.  We walked and talked as we finished the hill together.  I told her I wanted to take her picture as she crossed the finish line with the timer in the background.  I had planned to cruise back up at about the 2.9mi point so I had time to get in position.  Again, I was shocked that there wasn't another curve.  Deja vu!  So I took off running and she had planned to sprint the last .1 mi so just as I got to the finish line and turned around, she crossed the line!  Dang!  After they took her strip off her numbers, I had her rush over to the timer and I snapped a couple of pictures.  Bummer, but I got her at 47:59, so that was pretty good.

Annalee was suffering (not in silence) after the race and so we hung out on the lawn, ate oranges & chips and drank water & Gatorade.  We hung around for the awards ceremony.  I got beat by the winners of both the girls and boys Under 10 groups.  That was humbling and Annalee made sure I heard their times.  Those were speedy little buggers!  There were 8 in Annalee's AG and she came in 8th.  I came in 12th, but I don't know how many were in mine.  I would have had to run a sub-22:00 to have even placed in the top 5 for my AG!  (They gave out awards for the top 5 in each AG)  Maybe next year...

Overall, it was a great race.  I had almost skipped it and if Annalee wasn't planning to run it, I might have.  I was tired and had worked long hours this whole week.  I'm glad Annalee got me out and that we had a great time!  Such a fun adventure with my daughter!  We'll definitely have to do that again!

Here's the elevation map from throwing the route into the Route tool: