WATERFRONT 5K

So I won't announce this with as much fan fare as the miracle mile attempt which I fell flat on my face with last year, but I've decided to get back on the horse and dust off the running sneaks. Though, this time instead of targeting a 4:59 mile, because there doesn't seem to be any mile races in spring or summer, I'm hopping on board the 5k circuit. 5k, or 3.1 miles, is the next distance up from the mile and they are much more plentiful in terms of the number of races.

To prove, to myself, that I'm more serious about sticking with the running this time I decided to join a running club called Dolphins South End Runners. They are one of the better-established running clubs in SF, having been around for 40 years. They have races almost every weekend, not all 5k's necessarily, but are fairly low key stressing personal bests and the social element of having fun + running. And since their motto is "Start slow and taper off" which pretty much described my attempt last year to resurrect the running regime I figured it was a good fit.

So yesterday, after only really training 2 weeks, I ran my first 5k down on the Embarcadero. Out of 110 runners I finished 16th overall and 4th in my age group (30-39). Ironically enough my time, 21:13, was actually the identical time to the last 5k race I ran back in 2003 during the original running regime. So not a bad first effort, though well off the winning pace. Here are the complete results:



When I was actually running consistently a few years back, which I detailed in the previous Miracle Mile post, my best 5k time was 20:09. So I'm hoping over time as I get in shape to try to better that mark. Next race I'm tentatively targeting is on 4/8. More updates to follow.