PR - Sea Rim Striders Spring 5K - March 26, 2011

Sea Rim Striders Spring 5K - 25:25, 8:12 pace. 19th place out of 109.
Garmin data and map: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/75139878
Results: http://www.searimstriders.net/results/2011-Spring5K-OV.html

PR? At first, I thought I'd missed it by a few seconds. I didn't remember the exact seconds of my best time, but remembered 8:14 as my PR pace. Garmin showed my average at 8:17. I finished this race 25:25 by the clock, 25:27 by Garmin. After I got home, I looked up my previous best time and found it was 25:34. So, if the course distance was an accurate 3.1 miles, this was a PR. Garmin showed the distance 3.07, which may be within expected measurement variation of 3.1. I'm going to claim it.

At first, I had no intention of going for it. At the starting line, I told my friend Jeremy that with a still tweaky knee and only two weeks of marathon recovery, I was going to treat this as just a "fun run." But after starting out, I felt too good to not give it a try. I think it really helped to do a slow, longer warmup pre-race.

I normally warm up with 4 or 5 minutes of easy jogging.  That's enough to warm up, but not enough to expend a significant amount of energy needed in the race itself.  However I found recently that my knee responds better with a slower, more gradual warmup, and I modified my aproach slightly.  I just warmed up from a walk to a brisk walk to a slow jog to an easy run pace. About 12 minutes of walking, 3 minues of jogging and 2 minutes of running.  Total warmup: 1.2 miles - 17 minutes.