June 16 - June 17, 2012

I ran the Columbia Father’s Day 8K this morning with a time of 31:04, 14^th overall, and 3^rd in 30-39 division.  This is race is the fourth race of 2012 Maryland Grand Prix and the course was not flat – it lays on hilly Howard County; which no surprise there for everyone.  It was very nice weather this morning, no wind, low humidity, and temp was at low 60s’.  I got the race bright and early, warm up, and jog to the starting with everyone else. 

Everyone was charged down the road as the G word was called; it is a downhill started.  I wasn’t exactly try to race with anyone, just want to run the race and see how my fitness at, as I gearing up for the fall marathon training in July.  I got myself into a group of four with the second female (Sherry something) and two other gentlemen; at mile 1 I clocked 5m’43s’.  That is little too fast for me, but no hurry and I slowed down as the course led us onto MD-108's hills and with the uphill finish, I clocked 6m’11s’, 6m’05s’, 6m’11s’, 6m’12s’, and 0m’43’ for mile 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 4.9712, and 5.1 respectively on my Garmin watch; somehow, Garmin marked 0.15 mile longer than the official course; whatever is I ran well in the distance and earn a bright yellow tech shirt as third place in my age group.  Official result is here.

As conclusion, I think I did good on such hilly course and able to run a nice time after more than a month of “relaxing”.  Moreover, I think got about 65% of my fitness back and I should be able to run much faster on a faster course.  For now, I need to keep it uptill July, when I will start the training for fall marathon(s).  

I jogged 1.4 mile before as warm up and 2.1 mile as warm down for the approx. total distance of 8.6 miles for the 2012 Father’s Day. 

I ran 3.14 miles as my pre-race jog on Saturday morning.

If you haven’t done anything on this holiday, then come down Georgetown tonight for GRC Race Team Father’s Day 8K and get some sweet treat; please visit http://www.fathersday8k/.com for more info.