I was planning to post about the upcoming road race I was planning to run. But wouldn’t you know it, time flew by and here we are on the other side of it!

I’ve been doing a lot of running, about 5 miles a day. And for a while I was doing intervals anywhere from 6 mph to 8 mph. But I knew there would be some 5K races and I’d want a good pace I could maintain.

I guess I’d say when I started that 7 mph seemed fast for me. But over time I worked up to around 7.5 mph, which is an 8 minute mile. And doing the math, I figured I’d want to try and run a 5K in 25 minutes. Now this is on a treadmill, mind you (incline set to #2). I don’t really like running outside, with cars and exhaust and all that. And what’s worse is that a treadmill will not only tell you how fast you’re going, it will pretty much force you to go that speed.

Here’s where my secret weapon comes in — music on an old MP3 player. I did some looking around and found that I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones has the perfect tempo to match my running stride at 7.5 mph. And I’ve got other music I told you guys about already. So I made up a slightly modified mix for this race and I was off and… well yeah, running!

It’s hard to get started in a crowded field like there was today, so it was a good minute or so until I was running at the pace I wanted. But eventually I got there. And unfortunately, the music was all I had to work with. I had forgotten to start my watch, so I couldn’t really tell how long I’d been running. And that would only have helped if there was any kind of distance marking on the course, which there was not.

I had planned to kick it into high gear when Welcome To Paradise by Green Day came on. But since I’d gotten kind of a slow start, I had no idea how long I’d have to keep up such a pace. Would I burn out before the finish? I could kind of tell just by the area where I was at that point that I shouldn’t have much further to go, so what the heck. I poured on the speed, running what I can only imagine was something in the neighborhood of 8.5 mph.

And there was the turn for the finish and a bit of an uphill, but no big deal, and the mats to record the official time with the chip system — what a super invention, now if only they could have used them at the finish and start, like most races have!

So who knows how much better I might have done, but my hopes of a 25 minute finish — let’s just say I crushed it!! by better than a minute! I was shocked to see I’d broken 24 minutes. I certainly didn’t come close to winning any prize, but I have to award myself a huge gold medal for such a huge improvement over the race I ran last August. This year’s edition of that race will be here before I know it. Will I set a new personal best? I certainly will give it my best effort!