Sunday morning I was up at 5:05am to eat a quick bite, get dressed, and head down to Los Gatos for the Jungle Run. Jen was doing this event as a training run but I was shooting for a PR. More importantly, I had convinced a co-worker to train for and run the race and from the sounds of it he was going to be running a pretty fast pace. I knew that if I wasn’t able to beat him I would be hearing about it at the office for a few days so that was in the back of my mind leading up to race day. I “trained” for the event but with my tri training going on at the same time I knew I hadn’t done quite as much running as I would have with a run focused plan.
We arrived at the start around 6:15 (7:00am start time) so I had some time to walk around, hit up the port-o-john, and find Tim my co-worker. Jen, Tim, and I stood around for a while talking then headed over to the start and lined up. It wasn’t a huge race so there were no pace signs for people to line up at. We got in the middle of the pack and wished each other good luck before the gun went off and we headed out on the course.
The first quarter mile has a steep hill that was full of people due to it being so close to the start. This was probably a good thing since it forced me to keep a slow steady jog while we ascended. After a couple hundred feet the hill leveled out and the crowds started parting so I was able to settle into a comfortable pace. My first mile came in at 8:31 then fell to around 7:45 for the next two miles. At mile four I noticed I had picked up to a 7:36 so I made an effort to slow it down a bit then pick up the pace again around mile six. At mile five I saw that I had slowed to a 7:54 and right about that time I was passed by my co-worker Tim. I fell in-step behind him, ditched the water bottle I had been carrying, and paced him for the next mile. At the six mile mark I ate a Gu (Vanilla Bean), took a drink of water, and kicked it up a bit to pass Tim.
For the next few miles I averaged in the low 7:40’s and thought that once I was at mile 10 or 11 I would try to pick up the pace a bit. Turns out that at mile 10 the trail follows a slow steady incline for the next mile and a half so I just maintained my pace until the turn around to head back down the incline. Once I hit the turn around my knee really started bothering me. Every time I put weight on it a pain would shoot through my leg; I really thought I was going to have to stop. Right about this point I saw Tim heading up the trail towards the turn around and that gave me the push I needed to keep going. I did stop once to rub my knee (probably about 10 seconds) then I took off for the finish line.
The finish was on the high school track so we ran into the stadium for one loop around the track to the finish line. I passed a couple of people in this last stretch then hit the finish line. My previous HM PR was 1:47:27 – my time at the Jungle Run: 1:40:42, a new PR!!! AP for the race was 7:41.
1:40:42 – 7:41AP – 12th of 67 in AG – 79th of 757 OA
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3 comments:
Awesome run. You just keep getting better.
Dragonfly on the Water...
Great race report. That is an absolutely smoking fast time.
You forgot to add that you beat Tim by a couple minutes. :)Nice job!
Swwweeeettt! Think of where you were four months ago, my man! Nice run, nice pacing, well done all around. Oh, and I did not mention in my rr that the mud on the athletes after the swim was so bad that my buddy trashed his white race suit and has to get a new one. The pictures are hysterical of people with racoon eyes from mud running through the finish. Ah, NJ!
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