VillageFest 5k – 28:20

A light, refreshing rain started with the VillageFest 5k this morning. The course was a nice tour of the south-western corner of the Village, with a few more zigs and zags than I’d like.

Even in the rain, a few fellow citizens – including Jen and C – stood on the corners to cheer everyone on. Thank you and thanks to the police officers blocking street traffic for the duration of the race.

While the first 2ks went really well (4’48 k/mn & 5’02 respectively), I spent the third (5’30) struggling to find a pace. There was a golden retriever just ahead of me and we took the 4th k together (5’03), when he found a squirrel. I took that opportunity to shoot ahead finishing (5’03) with a sprint I didn’t know was left.

After that we all headed up to the community center for the pony rides, petting zoo, face painting, and the entire purpose of VillageFest – the helicopter ping pong ball drop.

Unfortunately, Bush is in town to checking out the remains of the 35W bridge. So, in addition to the increasing showers dampening the festivities, the Village airspace is restricted grounding the ball drop. Totally not worth having the POTUS in town.

What a bust.

5k – 28:11

Nike Bug was off by 150-220 meters tonight. So no pace info. Grumble, grumble. I re-calibrated it during the cool down walk, so hopefully it’ll be better on Thur.

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5k in 27:40

Held a firm 8 mn/mi for 2 ks before needing a 5 min refresher. I picked the pace right up again, hoding it for the duration of the run. Ending with a 8’51″/mi average. No 7s this time – and I can feel the difference – less of a driving rhythm, more on autopilot.

Idea for a new biathalon: run 5k then give a over-tired toddler a bath.

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5k in 28:20

Found a good 8 mn/mi rhythm right away. Too bad it only stuck with me for, well, 8 min. By k 3, I was there again and ended strong with a 7.5 mn/mi after another brief rest.

Overall pace: 9 mn/mi.

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Running Past

Mom sent over the times from my last season in High School XC – I mostly finished between 20:30 and 21 min. Thanks mom.

Some good motivation after last night’s failed attempt due to going out too close to finishing dinner. While I hit a 7’42” mile. I stopped there.

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Goal: 5k, Actual: 5k, Time: 30:52

Good run for the first K and a half, held a nice 7 mn/mi pace. It was a fight to keep going after that and while I reached 7 again at the 3k mark, I finished with an average 9.75 mn/mi.

The interval runs to this point have been a barometer to see where I fall in the Couch-to-5K running plan. Based on today’s run – I’m firmly in early week 5.

Playlist wise, I’m surprised to find the The Gentle Readers, The Be Good Tanyas, and the Dixie Chicks being more helpful to my running than my normal getting-stuff-done playlists.

Finally got the route figured out as well. My previous out-n-back was half a k short, Jen confirmed the distance in the Cruiser and turns out halfway puts me on the backside of a loop. Nice. Tonight though, I made a wrong turn just after 3k and ended up lost in a cemetery – chased by directionless Joss Whedon fans.

10 July 2007 Update:
Just confirmed the running loop with Google Maps. Exactly 5k. Nice.

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Goal: 5k, Actual: 5k, Time: 30:32

Pretty hard run. Thankfully, the dust was gone. Unfortunately, it was replaced by 96F heat.

iTunes isn’t remembering my Nikeplus.com account info – so none of the workout data is being sent to the Nike site. Definitely not the seamless integration advertised. Maybe I’ll look into this after I cool down.

Update: Not sure what I just did – aside from plugging in the Nano one more time – but the sync now seems to be working.

Goal: 5k, Actual: 4.5k, Time: 25:02,

A pretty good run. I’m still doing intervals to build up endurance (run a song, walk a song, repeat until you’re home.). I could feel a good rhythm underneath a thicker-than-I’d-like surface layer of dust. That underlying feeling kept me going.

I’m using the Nike+iPod kit to track my distance and time. Like Audiobooks and Podcasts before it, the Nike+iPod tab in iTunes proves how limiting iTunes must be for Apple. While the iPod shows me my last (as of this writing) 12 workouts, iTunes only shows me the roll up and none of the detail. Presumably, I need to follow the link to Nikeplus.com for that info, but, considering the volume of information iTunes is managing for me now it seems silly that I can’t see this workout info the same way as my music or movie libraries.