Sandwiches time Sandwiches time Sandwiches on my mind

This morning, the sandwich run.
The plan: run 3 miles up town. Really, up. If I walk out my door, I go down hill about 3 blocks. Then up hill for about a mile an a half so that's a nice warm up. Then do Coogan's 5k. Also, not flat. There's a lot of ups and downs on this courses. And let's face it, I dont like 5ks. I just dont. Unless they're cross country races, those I love. Dont ask me why. Then I ran 3 miles home to cool down. The run home is nice since I get to go down those hills I ran up. Ishii and Loren ran up there with me, and Loren ran home with me. During the race, she was cheerleader extraordinaire.
Anyway, the 5k. I decided to use this as my speed/tempo work out this week. Pfitz called for 10 miles with 5x1000 at 5k pace. I did this instead. Now I know they're not the same work out and I would fun 1000s fasters, but oh well. I like doing this race, so that's what I did.
No real expectations. That seems to be a theme for me lately. I never know how to gauge 5ks since I dont run them often and when I do they're usually XC.
I finished in 23:04, then of course I was annoyed that I was so close to breaking 23 minutes. Over all, pretty good given that I did my MP run 2 days ago and this was part of a 9 mile run.
Stats:
7:26 pace
1099 out of 5629
women: 174 out of 2612
age group 16 out of 382 (this really suprised me).

I'm going to end my entry today by bragging about my pal Megan Jenkins. Megan and I often trade off in races depending on the day, distance, position of the moon, whatever. She usually beats me however. This week, she was telling me of her frustration of working specifically on shorter distances and feeling like she's not getting any faster. I said, well, maybe you've hit a plateau and you'll push over it soon enough. At the start of the race today I asked her what she hoped to run. She wanted to PR (her PR 7:01 pace) but had doubts.
We started together but I only saw her for about the first mile. Then she took off, never to be seen by me again.
She finished in 21:10. 6:49 pace. 70% age grade.
Megan, I think you're over your plateau.
Way to seriously kick some ass out there today on a very tough course.

Working for the weekend

Oh faithful readers, you know I am coming off about 10 days of killer running. It comes as no surprise when I headed out for my 14 miles of fun yesterday that I was tired. So tired in fact, I cut my run short to 12.7 miles. I know, a real slice off the milage. No worries though, there was brunch to be had.

I am happy to say I finished Feb. with 195.2 miles. If it had been a normal month with a normal amount of days, I would have hit 200. Ok, if I hadn't chopped a few miles here and there I would have hit 200.

Moving on!

Today was the Coogan's 5k up in Washington Heights. People have this idea that NYC is flat. People who have this idea have never bean above 96th st., I'm sure of it. So yes, this 5k has a few hills along the way. My mom was slated to do this race as her first 5k. This was not to be however, as she twisted her ankle a few weeks and sidelined for today's race. I know she's bummed out this, Loren and I are as well. She'll been working hard! I have no doubt once she's all better, she'll be back on the horse.

On to the race...

It was a bit chilly this morning. The weather was calling for all sorta of wintery stuff that just didn't happen. We got some flurries which was nice. In years past, this course has been an out and back with a nasty little turn around. This year it was changed to go through Ft. Tyron park, home of the cloisters, which was a huge improvement.

Front Runners had 99 people out there today! A Great showing! Loren came through first, followed by  uptown running pal, Rachel, hitting a sub 7 pace. Soon, she will be too fast for me to run with.

But enough about everyone else, this is my blog. There's a big hill right before mile 1 that I didn't hit all out but benefitted from the downhill on the other side. Once I got to the mile market, I hit my watch. I hit STOP on my watch and not SPLIT because sometimes I am a moron and forget how a watch I've had for 2 years works. Oh well. All by feel now. I started it again having no idea how much time I lost. I hit split a mile 2 even though I knew it was wrong. So now I have that hill to go up again, this time I'm not holding back since I know there's not much more than a mile to go and some nice downhill. 

I get to mile 3 and manage to hit split this time 7:24. Cool, I think I'm close to PRing but really not sure. Ran the last .1 in 38 seconds. 

When I started this morning, my legs felt heavy. As I said, I've had some long and hard miles lately so I'm tired. Next week is  a cut back week and I am happy about that.

I had to wait until the official results were posted to see my final time: 23:17. A PR at 7:30 pace. It's been my goal to go under 23 minutes for some time now. I knew today wasn't the day with how I felt and the course. I am really happy about the PR however. Maybe some day when I'm not training for a marathon I'll actually train for these short things.

So let's see, this year I've done 4 races, I've PR in all of them. Not a bad start! Of course there's only 1 race that I really care about PRing and that will be in 2 months.