Running

I decided to take my running up a gear and enter a race.

That is part of my memory tag for Sunday 2 September 2012.

It was a 5 km circuit, a distance I knew I could do comfortably. I opted for this rather than the 10 km option as it would be the first time I had run in a group.

I was conscious of the need to not go off too fast. After the start I was towards the back of the group of 11 that had turned out. I paced off a runner in front of me, then overtook her during the third km, repeating this on the next runner in the fourth km, to come in fifth with a time of 26:09 min.

The iPhone app MapMyFitness gave the distance as 4.8 km and a pace of 5:31 mins/km.

The app uploads the details to the website where you can see the split times.

I went from 5:39 pace early on to 5:10 at the finish.

This is much better than the around 7 min/km on my jogs, which are usually between 8 and 12 km, though in training this week I introduced a "go for it" short route of about 3 km, which I did at 5:26 min/km pace. My breathing and effort seemed much more manageable in the race than in that fast training route, however.

So 5:31 mins/km is now my personal best for 5 km (perhaps a better measure than overall time if course lengths are goiong to be a bit variable).