Running: April 2010

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Half marathon result: 1:45:08

I decided to run a half marathon race 15 minutes before the start of the race yesterday. I originally intended to just meet a fellow runner and run with him as a rabbit to help him achieve his time goal in the race but never got to meet him. It was a chilly day but it was bright and sunny, I found out later that the Ash Cloud from Eyjafjallajokull volcano was finally moving over Reykjavik and the air quality was deteriorating.
The official result is here , I finished 99th of the 192 runners. I was quite satisfied with my time as it was 8 seconds slower than what I set myself as a goal. 2009 and 2010 have been wondering years in my running as I am starting to understand my body and able to set goals that are challenging yet achievable. It is a great feeling...

View Vormaraþon FM 2010 in a larger map
Above is the route of the Marathon, it was a pretty good route which I have run a number of times. Started off with a good clip, at the beginning of the 5th km my Garmin battery died so I was more less blind to my pace. I felt pretty good and completed half way in about 50 minutes I think I was not sure. Then the wind was on my face for the rest of the race, it was brutal. Never the less, finished the race by sprinting the last 200m with the clock striking 1:45! of course I stopped after passing the clock only to notice the finish line was a couple of yards in front of me and all the people standing shouting at me to move forward... which I did and that cost me the last 8 seconds :)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

First race in 2010: 5km in 21:33 PB

Image via Wikipedia

It was a beautiful day to be the first day of summer. Typical, Icelandic style, 0 degrees with 4m/s northerly winds. My wife and daughter and her friend drove me to the venue and I had decided to run the race with my running shorts, had my track pants on. My wife on discovering that I was planning to run in my shorts thought I was crazy because it was pretty cold with the wind chill. I did not want to run with my winter tights because I always felt constricted in them. Never the less, I did not have my gloves or ear cap, just had my LSU hat. Got the bib, my number was 410. Warmed up by doing a couple of sprints up and down the start road next to the Reykjavik City Hall. Heard the sound of the start gun and started to sprint out right away. It was a long straight with a small uphill at the end of the strip, I was able to pass many people on the hills. As they say, your running strength is shown on the hills. Continued a pretty fast clip, completed the first km in 4:09 and then the hills started rolling in not long ones but many short ones and I could see that I was able to push myself quite a bit. I averaged about 4:20 according my own calculations looking at my Garmin 305. Another note that I thought was very interesting is how many kids were running the race on the 4th km, I was passed by a girl, she must have been 12... I just could not believe that she was doing such a good pace, but I caught up with her and many others in the hills and left on my trail. It was a memorable run... Here is the official result of the 5km race held on April 22, 2010 in Reykjavik. I was 95th out of the 459 runners who finished the race. This was my first 5km race so it was pretty good result considering that I have never run one. I realized that I have a lot of gas left in me when I ran but for some reason I never pushed myself, I guess I need to be patient about improving. Before the run I set a goal of being able to run the race within 22 minutes and I achieved that goal... and I am happy about that. I had a milkshake at Metro (formerly McDonalds in Iceland) :). Now need to start preparation for the next race which is a half marathon the coming Saturday. Click on the image below to see the summary and splits of the race.

Running Stats so far - first 5km race on first day of Summer

Image by Nwardez via Flickr

I have been keeping with the running regime but have not been blogging... shame on me! anyways, here is the summary of my running in 2010 and it has not been bad.

I have registered to run a 5km race on the first day of summer (today!) and the goal is to run as hard as I can and set my first 5km PB. The race starts at 12:00 noon in downtown Reykjavik... I have run this race route before and it is pretty flat except for a small hill stretching about 300m.

Goal for the rest of the year:
1. 100km a week and push it to 150km
2. Start swimming to train for Iron Man in 2012.
3. Run Reykjavik Marathon
4. Qualify for Boston Marathon