2007 Pat's Run in San Jose

This was my second running race ever, and also first good test of my new toy. So lets see how I did:

Pat's Run 2007 - San Jose - Overall

date: Apr 29th, 2007 location: San Jose, CA Summary number of finishers: 2384 number of females: 1075 number of males: 1285 average time: 00:45:25

bib number:	1478
age:	38
gender:	M
location:	San Jose, CA
overall place:	525 out of 2386
division place:	161 out of 435
gender place:	419 out of 1286
time:	34:31
pace:	8:13

Ok so total time was about 22 secs. longer compared to the Great Race (4.0 miles), but the course of Pats Run was 4.2 miles, so in the end I improved my average pace from 8:32/mi to 8:13/mi - yahooooooooo!
Well... I should probably calm down, since my goal is to be able to run for 26 miles with less than 7:30/mi, so that I can qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Russ - my boot-camp instructor was also running (he improved since Great Race too - his time today was 24:13 and pace 5:46/mi). We also expected Mohamed (another fellow boot-camper) but it seems that he "no-show'ed" for the race.

But anyway - running was only half of the fun. Finally I was able to put my brand new (3 days old) toy (Garmin Forerunner 301) to a good test. For the first time I was really able to see the advantages of being able to monitor my heart-rate and pace in real-time. With continuous display of heart-rate I was able to adjust so that I don't go over my max. heart-rate. The only problem was, that when I stop paying attention (the last 0.2 mile before finish) I went too high on the HR (max for my age is 182 by text-books). I need to find out if I can set audible alert for this.
Another thing that I need to change (this time it was really my silliness) is when I start the "clock". In todays run I started the clock with a starting gun, and it took me about one and half minute to reach the starting line. The two lessons learned before the next race are:
1) stand closer to the starting line (there were people not even planning to run, way ahead of me, so I had to weave around to pass them)
2) start the clock at the start line (nobody cares how long you walk to the start line, from where you were when the race started, and it can be really long time, if you're far)
One last "convenience" item is to set the Forerunner to mark laps every mile automatically (yes it can do that). Today I forgot to mark the lap at 2 mile mark, and I ended up with 3 laps that are 1, 2 and 1 miles long respectively, instead of the 4 one mile long laps I wanted.

The "icing on the cake" is the data download, so that you can look up the race on a map, check out your performance, and graph things like heart-rate, elevation and pace to see all the details of the run. My details are again on the motionbased.com website.

So in the end it was great to have the Forerunner - I was able to better pace myself, and make the whole run more fun! for myself.

New toy

After I run the Great Race, I decided I "deserve" a new toy - a heart rate monitor with a GPS. I like buying things at costco, and "coincidentally" they have the old Garmin Forerunner 301, for about $150. They also have the new Garmin Forerunner 305, but I decided that I don't have to have the latest-and-greatest.
So last week I received my package, and lunch time on Thursday I went to the hill that we run 1 mile test at the boot-camp. I just started running, thinking I'll run real slow, so that I don't break a sweat (I didn't even change into running clothes). After all I was just doing this to "test if it works" :-)
I ended up finishing the mile in 8:45 (not bad for "not running" pace). So far I think that the forerunner is fantastic. It has a chest strap for continuous heart-rate display and the GPS gives you distance and pace readings while you run. The other cool thing about it, is that you can upload the data after run, to motionbased.com website, for further analysis and/or sharing.

So far this is it, but I plan to post a lot more of my observations on how it works for me.

View from the top...

20070401-133712-S110-5576
Originally uploaded by tprzygoda.

Some time ago, one of my co-workers took on a challenge and biked to the top of Mt. Hamilton. I decided that if he did it, I can do it too. I asked my friend to go there with me for a bike ride one day. That "one day" happened to be April 1, 2007. The result was a pretty steady (about 5% grade) climb for 4.5 hours on my squeaking mountain bike, and about 1 hour ride down. I had on me a Camelbak MULE with about 3lt of water, so the whole ride indeed felt more like a mule ride, not a bike ride. I can mark this challenge as done now, but since I did it in such a wrong way (heavy bike, heavy gear, etc.) that I decided to re-do it one day (maybe in few months?), but on my new road-bike instead of the MTB. Also I want to do it in a more reasonable time (2.5 -3 hours climb, and about 45 min. down.) Again plenty of room for improvement, so keep on training...

My first running race...

20070415-104042-DMC-TZ1-0103
Originally uploaded by tprzygoda.
So I started about mid January, to go to a fitness bootcamp (been there regularly since). It happens that our instructor likes running, and I think it's sort of contagious, so I started to run too.

So far I have lofty hopes and dreams (I'd like to qualify for a Boston Marathon in 2009), and one small achievement. I've run in the "30th Great Race" from Saratoga to Los Gatos, together with my buddy from the bootcamp Bryce and our instructor. This was my first running race ever and I did pretty good against my own goals (I hoped to run the whole race - 4 miles - in about 40 minutes) - my official time was:

Event:	The GREAT Race
Year:	2007
Bib:	262
City:	San Jose
State:	CA
Overall:	519
Finish time:	35:06
Chip time:	34:09

Net result - I still have plenty of room for improvement - keep running...