I must admit I wasn’t too confident of a great race today. Thursday’s workout left me feeling fatigued and last nights easy 4 miles wasn’t exactly easy. Even during the three mile warm up my legs felt heavy and I wasn’t really “feeling it”. No matter, I took my pre-race gel, stripped down to singlet and shorts and took my place on the starting line.
I’ll spare you the details, but the race went well – very well. My previous best 25k time was 1:37:34 set back in 2007 (see below). Actually, looking back, that was the one and only time I’ve broken one hour forty minutes in a 25k. Today I ran 1:35:34 – exactly two minutes quicker than my best. How it happened I’m not sure, but somehow I was able to average 6:10 per mile and keep it going for 15.5 miles. It still hasn’t sunk in to be honest and despite a few aches and pains, I’m feeling great.
Time for a celebratory Samichlaus beer, which just so happens to be the last of my current batch. I’ll need to restock soon if my current form continues…..
Previous 25k race times:
2008 – 1:41:19
2007 – 1:37:34
2006 – 1:40:28
2005 – 1:46:40
2004 – 1:45:05
2003 – 1:40:36
2000 – 1:42:40
Nice work! That ain’t walkin’…
I continue to be amazed!
Looking at your improvement over the years, you might be real incarnation of Benjamin Button:)
Nice Job Bulldog.
I’ve experienced that a few times before; you might not be feeling the best, but then crank out a PR. Kind of shows we don’t know as much about ourselves as we think.
The good news is that you should remember it the next time you’re not feeling the best on a run. You never know.
Congrats on your new PR, Steve! Sounds like you might want to think about investing in one of those beverage refrigerators to store your Samichlaus! 😉
I agree with Joe; sometimes the way a person feels doesn’t always correspond to their performance. Speaking of which, I once ran a race on only 4 hours of sleep & surprisingly ended up with a new PR. 🙂
Thanks for all the comments. Think it was just one of those rare days when everything went really well.
A beverage refrigerator is a great idea. Maybe I can use my Richmond Marathon prize money to purchase one…
Sure, why not! That way you can keep your beverages colder (or atleast at their optimal tempature). (And those with the EnergyStar logo on them are also supposed to conserve energy as well.) I know that some models even come with their own beer tap (i.e., the kegerator). 🙂
This site & this site both look like fairly comprehensive places to check out various models.
Nice work. Man… you continue to set the bar higher and higher. I’m impressed.