Fourth place AGAIN!

Mid-sixties, sunny, a slight wind - almost a perfect day for a 5K. I always enjoy traveling to Bemidji in early October for the Blue Ox. The leaves are at their peak color, the cow bells are ringing. several old guys ready to prove they can still do it.

Jerry was there. Mike was there. Steve was running his first 5K. He was running with his daughter. What a fun day! Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a photo of all of us together...

Thankfully, we started at the traditional location - not last year's location where I lost about 30 seconds trying to run around people.

I started out a little slower than planned: 9'54" pace for the first mile. Second mile: 9'36". Third mile: 9'34". Glad for the negative splits. I'm not sure if I could've run faster. I battled the woman on the right for the last 5 minutes of the race. 

Thankfully, I was able to pass her at the end.

Will I ever be able to run under 29:00 again? I don't know, but I'm going to keep trying.

International Competition

There's a small town about an hour and a half north of us called Kleefeld. Yesterday it was the site of one of the most important 5K races in Manitoba. This race draws many elite runners from Winnipeg and the surrounding area.

About a month ago I was searching for a September race and luckily found this one. Thankfully, it didn't start before 10:00 because I had to cross the border to get there and the border crossing doesn't open till 8:00. 

It had been raining lightly most of the morning. The temperature was comfortable - about 60 degrees with no sun. The smell of a nearby pig farm was in the air... Thankfully, the rain stopped shortly before the race began, but the ground was still wet which made for some interesting reflections for photographs.

My plan was to start running at a 9:50 pace. The second mile would be about 9:40. Then, hopefully just pick up the speed and try to even get up to 9:00 pace. My actual splits were: 9:44, 9:32, and 9:30. That's pretty close to plan. If I would've stuck closer to plan, would I have done better? I don't know.

My final time was 29:49. I was shooting for 29:00, but anytime I can get under 30 I've got to be happy. (See details below.)

As I mentioned, this race had some elite runners. Simon Berube, a 29-year-old from Winnipeg, took first with a time of 14:19. That's an average pace of 4:36! There were two other men with times under 15:00. The fastest woman, Maia Idzikowski, finished in 18:20. These were all the fastest time in Manitoba this year.

Road to Health #12 - Pull-Ups

For several years, at the end of runs, I've headed over to the playground near our house to do pull-ups. Also, since we've started going to Florida in the winter, I bought a pull-up bar so I'm easily able to do pull-ups there.

Unfortunately, even though I've been doing pull-ups regularly, especially during the summer months, I've found it next to impossible to get passed a maximum of 12 reps.

It's only been during the last year that I decided to seriously increase volume. It seemed like a good idea to do my age in reps (non-continuously, of course). It took awhile to increase the volume to 68 (my age then), doing reps of 3, 4, or 5, but eventually I got there. Now, I'm doing reps of 6 and hoping to increase to 7 soon.

The good news: I've finally had a breakthrough. Today I'm able to do 16 reps!

Road to Health #11 - Push-Ups

I think it was about 20 years ago that someone put a thought in my brain - doing one's age in push-ups. What a great idea! And so I've been doing that.

It sounds overwhelming at first, but there's a cool web-site called Hundred Pushups which puts one on a program to achieve this goal (at least the goal of doing one's age) rather quickly. 

When I first started doing push-ups, I knew they were good for me, but I didn't know how good until I discovered this article: 'Push-up capacity linked with lower incidence of future cardiovascular disease events among men.'

Last year I thought it might be cool to do a video of myself doing my age in push-ups. Unfortunately, it was only then that I realized I was doing them incorrectly. I went through the program and got back up to my age in push-ups. So, around my birthday we did another video. Oh no!!! I was still doing them wrong! Okay. I know what the problem is now, so I'm back on the program. I'm now up to 50 correct push-ups. I should be back on track in a few weeks.

Road to Health #10 - Cancer Prevention

Ten years ago I was in the Twin Cities for a wedding. Since this forced me to miss a 5K I normally run, I decided to look for a race in the Cities that weekend. I discovered a beautiful location that ran all the way around a lake. The race was called Miles for Melanoma. 

I didn't actually do that well in the race, but afterward they were providing free screenings. What a great idea. I discovered that day that I needed to see a dermatologist as soon as possible. I had pre-cancerous skin lesions. I've been visiting my dermatologist religiously ever since.

Yellow Rose

The weather was perfect for the Yellow Rose today - sunny, low 60s, very little wind.

There were at least 200 runners today!

It was a good start. I didn't let my emotions get the best of me. I kept it to about a 10 min pace.

I pretty much ran exactly as planned: approx 10 min pace for the first mile, 9:45 for the second mile and 9:30 for the third mile. 

I waved at Phil and Marcia:

I'm getting close to the end:

Right near the end, a 71-year-old fellow from Roosevelt, Michael Palmquist, passed me! I couldn't let him beat me! I put it into another gear and probably beat him by a hundredth of a second.

I was happy to get back under 30 minutes. I was pleased with the negative splits. I don't think I could have done any better than I did - my max heart rate was 190! Unfortunately, I did not medal. I came in fourth place for the 60-69 men.

Make a Difference for ALS Walk/Run: Disappointment

Saturday was the 27th annual Make a Difference for ALS Walk/Run. It was hot and humid. Going into the run, I thought I was ready to take it up to the next level. I actually thought I could best my 8:31 time from Fergus Falls last month.

So I started out fast. The plan was to go with a 9:15 pace for the first mile and to speed up from there. As it turned out, I couldn't even hold the 9:15 pace for the whole first mile. I crashed and burned from there. I ended up with a time of 30:33.

On the bright side, I took 2nd place for the 50+ age group. And $38,000 was raised for patients and research.