bridge: beaten.
This morning I ran the Beat the Bridge race, 8 KM (or 4.97096954 miles, says Google). Tim, Mike and I did the race, Tim and I in the 2nd wave, which was for people under 40 minutes, and Mike was in the 3rd wave , 40 and over. I ran with Tim for the first couple miles, then he went on ahead - though apparently not as far ahead as I thought. I came in when the timer read 45:35, which is the time from the start of the first wave (under 35 minutes) which began 5:00 before my wave. Of course, we didn’t actually cross the Start line until around 1:10 into it, since Tim and I were back in the crowd of people, so I’m pretty sure my final time was roughly 39:25. That’s about 7:55 per mile; not bad considering I have been lazy as hell for the last 2 years or so. Tim came in at around 38:00, which is about a 7:39 minute mile.
My time probably would have been at least 30 seconds faster, but since we started back in the pack, we were held up by and had to pass hundreds of people just to get up to a regular pace, so that first mile was probably done at 9- or 10-minute mile pace.
The race was fun; I mean as fun as running 5 miles can be. I’m glad I did it, and I’m also glad and impressed Mike did too - he’s not exactly the most athletic guy, plus he’s got a bad knee which I know will be hurting like hell for the next few days. But he did it, which is the important part, and he wants to do more runs. And Rob didn’t do it, cause he’s a wussy Canadian.
Tim, Mike and I are going to do some more races this summer too, some 5 K’s (3.1 miles) which I’m much more used to - that’s the distance of a high-school cross country race. There are races basically every weekend, or every other weekend. There’s a race next weekend, though I’ll be out of town, and then on June 12th, 13th, 18th, 26th, July 3rd, etc.
I’ll do any of them, if someone else wants to do it. If you’re interested in joining us, just let me know.