Racing recap

I missed posting about last weekend races- The Twine Ball Race in Darwin, and the Mill City Race at Powderhorn- due to the lack of excitement of racing at home. Both days were slow feeling due to mud and hills, but I raced hard finishing 4th at the Twine Ball and 6th at Mill City. The my cheering crowd at both races was great. My mom, brother, and some neighbor kids watched the Twin Ball race, and the entire VB crew, U of Mers, and other random people were out at the Mill City race. It was great to have such enthusiastic support.

This weekend, I traded my bike for running shoes and flew to Paris for a 5k Fun Run. I actually came to Paris for yet another gastroenterology conference, and the Fun Run was part of the conference. October has been pretty shitty!

I had no expectations for the Fun Run except to finish. I knew I was capable of running 5k (3.1 miles), even if I was 7 time zones away from home. To my surprise, I ran really well, narrowly missing my personal records (PR) in both the 4k (16:15 from 1998) and 5k (20:36 from 2000). I'm not really sure what happened, or rather, why I ran so fast. I suppose, last weekend with the run-ups, I put in some serious running interval training. I kinda want to do another 5k, just to see if I can PR.

This was a nice way to erase my memory of the 2007 5k Milk Run, which I also ran the day after I flew across the Atlantic Ocean. Flashback: I had spent all day on Saturday riding my fixie around town, using strange muscles in my quads to stop my bike. Sunday, I felt good at race start. The first 2 miles went well. The 3rd mile, which is almost all down hill, was terrible. Those fixie-stopping-muscles are the same ones that you use when you run down hills. They were so upset, that I was getting passed by old men! I ran my uphill mile (2nd mile) almost as fast as I ran my downhill mile!

Next weekend will be filled with more jet-lagged competition (I return home Thursday night): Ham Lake and Grumpy's