BELMAR CHASE 5K!!!

This week has been a wild mix of running and all the other aspects of life.  It has been hot and at times, and at other times nice and runnable.  Today I ran up along Trap Rock up a 1000 ft long incline that ascends at 9% grade which is what I title as the Hill of Death along here in Kingston, NJ. The road is not the hardest thing I have ever done but if you were to do repeats on this hill, it could easily turn you into a little pile of mush.  After work, I headed out along the hill and ran in the shade of Old Georgetown Road which is a side diversion off of the main road along the quarry.  The mid-afternoon heat was not nice but luckily I took my water bottle and used it to hydrate and splash a little bit of ice cold water along the backside of my neck.  I was able to log 70 minutes before the big 5k tomorrow as  I hope to be able to win the race and score a nice prize purse.  This will be my first Jersey Shore race and I am excited to see the competition.



Recap: The race was muggy and pretty hot for a New Jersey 8:30 am race at 80 degrees or so and 90% humidity.  The Belmar CHase was a chase indeed as a group of 5 Kenyans showed up to fight for the prize money.  I was nervous and just hoping to run a fast time. With the waves crashing in the background, the race was off. I was jockeying for position amongst the huge lead pack as the pace was maybe around 5:05 mile pace for the first half-mile.  Then the Kenyans made a move as the pack began to string out and I lead the chase pack as three other guys went with the Kenyans.  I crossed the first mile around 4:52 and was feeling nice and relaxed though I was already drenched with sweat.  I then began to make a move to catch the Kenyan pack.  As we neared the two mile mark around Lake Como in around 9:40, I splashed myself with the aid station water and was running with a guy from Brooks.  He was panting pretty hard as we worked together stride for stride.  It was once we hit the long 1200m straight-away into the finish that I lost my closing speed and lost pace with the Brooks guy. I was then passed by two more guys into the finish shoot as my legs just ceased to push any harder.

I placed 10th in 15:37, an average time for me for summer racing as last summer in Oklahoma,  I was hitting faster 5k times while training in intense heat!  I was not to happy with my performance but shrugged it off because heck Ashlee and myself are at the Jersey Shore, and training after the OKC marathon has been hard especially with my golf job where I rise at 4:55am every morning and many times have been missing some crucial sleep.  So to look back on it all, I would say that 5k's are not my thing anymore but they can serve as nice speedwork and can help me gauge my fitness and training.  I feel that 25k-50k is my ideal distance as I can outpace people and even split a 4:50 mile and then take a recovery mile if need-be whereas that would cost me a race in a 5k or 10k even.  My next race will be the Virgil Monster Marathon in Cortland, NY in September 2nd and I may just run another race before that just for fun!

Lovely Belmar Beach!

The Finish---15:37

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For my long run, I ran 1 hour, 33 minutes and 36 seconds for a grand total of 14.8 miles and an average of 6:19 a mile.  A nice run in my new Asics Gel PHoenix 4. They are a lot cushier than the Karhu Stable so we will see how they work out.