A Small PR and a Great Summer (of Running) 2024
A lovely unplanned race (kind of) on 4th of July
It was a time trial on the 4th of July.
I mentioned in my previous stories how I recently joined the coaching staff of Beckman High School in Irvine, CA. My son graduated from this school and ran for its varsity team, so my connection to Beckman is not random.
The time trial was for the returning runners and the freshman kids who joined the summer camp in the hope of later joining the cross country team. For the trial the returning runners ran two miles, and the new ones - 1.5 miles. I joined the faster group. I’ve already been running with them during many workouts during the week, and this time trial was another fun occasion to join.
I got to the school very early and helped the coach with the exact measurements and marking the course. Part of it was on the track, and part extended to the adjacent sports field.
At 7:30, we were off to the race!
I’m the guy in the yellow T-shirt to the right of center.
Less than ten minutes later, the fastest boys finished their two mile run.
My goal was to run under 11 minutes. I want to run a sub-17-minute 5K (the pace is 5:28 min/mile) in the near future, and if I didn’t manage to run two miles under 11 minutes, that would indicate that I’m not close to breaking 17 minutes for 3.1 miles.
I got what I wanted!
I didn’t really think of this specific time trial as an opportunity to PR because I don’t race two miles, but now that Strava registered it as a standalone PR, I’ll take it!
And I’m just pleased with the result. 5:24 per mile for 2 miles at 44 years old? Several years ago, if someone had told me I was capable of running this fast, I wouldn’t have believed it. Also, less than 48 hours prior to this run, I did really hard intervals, and the night before, I ran 9 miles, so I didn’t taper or prepare for this as I would for a formal race.
So another PR in the books, a small one but a PR nonethless.
Coaching and running with the high school team is not the experience I planned until recently but it’s going very well.
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