The morning was drizzly and cool. Especially for those of us used to warmer rainy days that we have in Japan. It was great seeing familiar faces, though, and it was a good social event. As we lined up at the start line, the announcer stated that only those people capable of finishing the first mile in 6 minutes should be on the first line. I joined a large group who moved to the back of the crowd... :-)
... and we were off. Those people dashing off at the front of the line finished the 5k in 18 minutes or so... Impressive! I'm a bit farther back... not really even in the picture at this point...To keep me interested and motivated in running, I've loaded up on geeky running tech stuff. I bought a Garmin GPS watch that has a heart rate monitoring strap so it keeps track of my heart rate while it tracks where I've run, how fast I was running, elevation, and cadence. Cadence is tracked by a foot pod that is attached to the laces of my shoe. It is mainly a method to use the watch when I'm on a tread-mill, but it provides good info on when I'm jogging, stop, walk, or sprint (the latter being pretty rare...) Click on the "View-Details" to see all the gritty details on how slow I ran the race.
As we came down the hill to the park, I took muster of the small energy reserves I had and started to pick up the pace to sprint to the finish line with the last of my energy. That worked fairly well until the course didn't turn toward the finish line, but rather continued past it and around a portion of the park before coming back to the finish line. I'm surprised there wasn't a pile of bodies on that little extra loop, I certainly felt like collapsing there... :-) But, as I came back around, William was waiting there for me to cheer me on as he ran with me for the last few yards. Feeling that it would be poor form to collapse in front of my son just yards from the finish, I found some even deeper reserves to finish.
Finished in 32:02. Nothing like those first finishers in the 18 minute range, but respectable for me this early in my training.William borrowed my Garmin Watch so he could run around and see how fast he was running. Nothing like having your own speedometer... (Click "Satellite" to see that he didn't really go for a swim...)
They did offer up "Kiddy Runs". We were hoping for half mile race complete with place tracking and prizes like they had for the 6 and 7 year olds in the Fun-Run in Yokosuka, but with the smaller number of kids, it probably wasn't worth all that work. William's race was a 75 yard dash with just him and one other. He'd already scoped out the race and his competition. He came up to me after I'd finished my race and told me, "OK, the GOOD news is that the race is only 75 yards long. The BAD news is that my competition is 7 years old (1 year older than him).... But, the GOOD news is that she is pretty slow..." It was indeed a two person race and William won handily. He got a "Kid's Dash Finisher" ribbon for his efforts. In retrospect, I probably should have entered him in the 1 mile run/walk that started at the same time as the 5k.He is anxious to join me on my regular runs. We'll see what he is capable of and see if we can do the next 5k together.
As we had mentioned, it was a great opportunity to see many good friends from home. Early on the trail, I found Pat Kern while Caroline met his girlfriend Jennifer waiting for us to finish.All in all, it was a good day!
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