[Today’s run: 3.5 miles]
My wife was plotting with some of her internet friends to attend a half-marathon race near Columbia, SC in the middle of November. She asked me about it, and it turns out that we have Friday the 11th off for Veterans Day so it would work into the schedule.
Then, when she was signing up for her race she shouted at me to see if I wanted to sign up for the 5K. And even more amazing, I said yes.
So it looks like I am going to run a very slow 5K in November. I don’t think I’m going to lose 30 lbs and get all speedy in the amount of time remaining. But I hope to make it to the end of the course.
Five kilometers is 3.1 miles and my usual route here, you may have noticed, is 3.5 miles. So I’m fairly confident I can go the distance unless I have some sort of unexpected, tragic injury.
Back in my fast days (which would technically be never!), I could do a 5K in something like 22 minutes. I don’t actually have a record of this, I’m going by my dim recollection. Maybe it was more like 24 minutes. I’m sure I never broke 20 minutes, no way that ever happened. Anyway, this time I’m hoping for something under 40. I’d have to haul my sorry bloated carcass in a serious way to break 10 min/mile, which would be 31 minutes. Twelve min/mile would be 37.2 (?) that would be a good goal.
This is why I don’t race very much. Even when there was some hope I could make a good showing I was still slow and it is not getting any better. But it should be fun, for some definition of “fun” and I’ll probably get a t-shirt.