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An admitted shoe geek waxes philosophical about running, triathlon, and life in general.
Comments welcome!


Thursday, July 21, 2011

First-time events

Last night was the Seward Park Aquathon, a 1/4 mile swim, 5K run event (basically a sprint tri without the bike). First time I've done one of these, and as much as I like biking, I think I could really grow to like an event like this.

The event itself went well, though the lead-in was a bit stress inducing -- I didn't get to the race site with my gear until 15 minutes before the start time. I made it to the line with a couple minutes to spare.

The swim was great, thought the course may have been a little long. Regardless, as we all do the same distance, whatever it is, it really doesn't matter. Measuring a swim course has GOT to be difficult. GPS will only get you so close.

The run... Well, I knew I was going to have to balance speed with my calf blowing up on me, so I kept the stride rate very high and tried to keep the calves ultra relaxed, with no push-off. Just before the one mile marker, I felt a little stab in my calf (JUST as I was passing a guy), and had to stop to stretch it, and tried to massage it a little. I passed that mile marker in 7:20... From that point on, I just kept concentrating on relaxation and high cadence.

Finished what the course said was 5K in 22:23, for an average of 7:13 per mile... Wow. Unexpected. And good enough for 1st in my age group.

After the race my calf just locked up.

So I'm thinking I'm just going to put running on the shelf for a couple weeks (yeah, the next Aquathon is in 2 weeks...) and see how it feels.

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