Sunday, October 25, 2009

October 24, 2009 - personal worst 5k but good enough to medal!

wow, not very often i run a personal worst and still finish 1st in my category. today's early cold morning "Mun Run" was a 5k race to raise money for the Memorial University Athletic program. a field of nearly 100 runners, mostly young students, braved the zero degree and windy snowy conditions. at 35, i was one of the older runners, and one of only a handful of racers over 25. i placed 1st among 30-39 females, way ahead of the next runner. guess all the stars are skipping this race in favour of running tomorrow, or resting up after cape to cabot.

at the start, i ran into a friend who was in town from Yellowknife, of all places. always nice to see people mixing racing with work. i ran a fairly consistent run and did about as good as i could have hoped. sore knees from last week's cape to cabot, strong head wind, small hills, and the extra layers of clothing all accounted for a slower race time. 24.20 is still fairly respectable for me, given all of this, and given the lung issue. only 37 seconds slower than my post-op personal best time, which i ran 9 weeks ago.

my splits were 4.30, 4.45, 4.55, 5.00, 5.10.

i spent the rest of the day going back and forth to the hospital to see my friend (one is still in and the other is out), and time on my couch relaxing with some NCAA Football on TV. my time watching football has paid off, as i am expecting to rank in the top 100 out of over 70000 people in the facebook college football pool. potentially making me the highest ranked canadian in the pool! too bad there's no money involved.. just bragging rights!

not really sure what tomorrow will bring. i am hoping my other friend gets out of the hospital. if my knees feel up to the Autism run, i will give that 5k race a go, making it a rare doubleheader race weekend. there also might be a swim at the pool, and visit to the duck pond, and some studying for monday's job interview.

in all, not a bad day at all!
Jenn

3 comments:

Alanna said...

Good job on the MUN 5k! I regret not running that one but I was a little worried I would show up and be surrounded only by people from the MUN running teams and be terribly intimidated :)

Jennifer McCreath said...

there were definitely lots of MUN athletics students there, and they all ran quite impressive races. i finished middle of the pack - 44th out of 90. that race really made me feel old. kinda sad that most of the regulars did not come out to run this one. it was for a good cause, that's for sure.. don't let others intimidate you. nothing wrong with finishing towards the back of the pack, as long as you hit your goal, that's what matters.. Jenn

nwtrunner said...

Hey Jennifer - you did great on the run and time. I laughed at your comments about age - I told my buddy Reuben that I *really* felt like a geezer out there today as one of very few 50+ runners! It reminded me of last year when 3 of us that went to MUN together in late 1970s got together at Breezeway - we stood out soooooooooo much! It was great to see you at the MUN run and I wish I'd seen you at Cape to Cabot, particularly as we finished just moments apart! I finished the race and then went up to the tower, so guess I missed you. Have a great winter of running and swimming! I got back to NWT yesterday, but Yellowknife is just a whistle stop on my way farthern north! I live in a little town called Norman Wells on bank of Mackenzie River just below the Arctic Circle.