The St. Patrick's Day Race

Woohoo! I survived it. Even with the crappy weather, it was fun. It started at the Red & White Club at McMahon Stadium, then went twice around the University of Calgary campus (once if you were doing the 5K) and back to the Red & White Club. 1100 people showed up, though I don't know what the split was between the 5K and 10K.

I crossed the start line at 24 seconds, and there was lots of traffic for the first three kilometres or so, until people started to spread out a bit. Then it took until about the 5K mark for my speed to settle, at which point I pinned the needle at 5:39 per kilometre. At about 8.5K, I kind of dropped into that long stride lope, where I pump my arms a bit harder, and managed to shave another couple of seconds off the interval by 9.5K. The last 500m, I put a little more into it, and let the last little hill carry me to the finish line. Crossed at 57:16, so 56:52 in total. I'm quite happy with that.

Forgot, however, to stop the time on my GPS until about 100 yards later, so that timing is a little off, as is the speed it reports.

And no intervals. I just started the timer and ran.

Today's run:
Distance: 10.2 km. Time: 58.02. Speed: 10.6 kph.Note the 45 seconds or so after I crossed the finish line, that it took for me to realize the timer was still going.

Weather: Mostly cloudy and -1C, with winds from the northwest at 32 kph. Lots of slush and wet, and some icy spots. There was the added hazzard of small miniblizzards every time clumps of snow would blow off trees.

Afterwards there was beer and Irish stew. Somehow I ended up with two food tickets, so I went back for seconds. Delicious! And lots of door prizes, none of which I won.

Seriously fun morning.