I'm signing up for my first ever RACE!!
 

well pheuk. I gotta race eventually.

not a car race. a foot race!! I am going to run competitively against other runners. seriously what the eff am I thinking??

it is a race, but it is for fun. it is our annual IPA10k. comes with free beer and a beer jersey. not mad about it.

did the conversion, and I can hoof it 6 miles or so without embarrassing myself. I might take HANK, my dog for an extra entry fee. I do think a 6 miles run earns me a beer. and maybe a pretzel. :)

and I am making a clothing donation. I dropped 5" from the waistline. picked up new pants today. 33" and 34"..no more cinching down a 38" pant to "make it work". I look unkempt. :D

my wife offered to pay my entry fee. hehehe.. lets do this. time to get excited.

Have you done a 10k, and if so, what's your time?

The missus and I did a 10k at "Beat the Blerch" in 2018. My time was 57 mins. I think we'd trained from being sedentary to the run for 5-6 months. I'm tall with long legs and enjoyed running in school, so don't compare yourself to me. I'm not super fast by any means, but i think I'm a little above average compared to the avg Joe. I think the fast guys were in the low to mid 40s. I think in the 9th/10th grade, I could do it in about 45 mins.

nope. I've run 6 miles but never timed anything.

I think I might time myself with a calendar for starters... I go 6 miles Sunday. see where I need to improve...ahhahha

Nice, running 6 miles is no joke. We were both in for doing a half marathon, but we never got around to that. I think I could manage 2ish hours of running. I know a bunch of folks that have done full marathons. I think it's generally a 4-5.5 hour ordeal. I don't feel like I need to run that long. I'm not a foot messenger for the army or emporer, and there are better ways to spend that much time.

Good luck! I look forward to hearing your accomplishment. For that long a run, I would think of it as running in a group rather than racing. If I thought "I'm racing everyone else" it would be too easy to burn out trying to keep up with or pass other folks and then die at the end.

Sorry, forgot to mention, congrats on the major weight/inches loss! That's great. was up 20# at the end of the summer from this time last year, and didn't like it. I've started working on it and I'm down a fair amount. At my peak at the end of a day where we'd had too much to eat, I was 207. Last night, I weighed 189.5. But that was after 48 hours of fasting. Between having an empty stomach and the fact that you lose water weight while fasting, I'm probably closer to 194-196.

Are you using a smart watch or anything to track your heart rate?

I am. I will get better at it. at 4:30 in the morning, it is a bit much to hit activate on the watch. I usually pet my dog and we start jogging.

Yeah, I have a hell of a time remembering to start and/or stop my watch when I'm doing a workout. I usually remember 5-6 mins in. Or I start it before I go, and then look down an hour or two after I finished and see that it's still ticking away and wondering why my heart rate is now at the resting level. The worst was once back in September when I looked down at lunch time and realized that it had been running for something like 18 hours.

Good for you!
Hopefully, it is a flat course.
The dog might be frowned upon. Back in the eighties, when I ran, I saw twice where runners tripped over someone's dog and got hurt. They might not allow it. I don't know the rules anymore.

Me... mostly in the 37's. Did one biathlon and ran a 36 + change.
Best marathon was 2:56. Bakersfield(flat) and drizzling.

Addictive sport. I always ran against my watch. Enjoy.

dog is a $40 fee I think. :D

Those times are HAULIN Aß!

My goal when I used to race- was to just beat someone. Anyone.
Then I always went home happy!
If I wanted to beat everyone, I would have always been disappointed.
If you finish--- you will have beaten many.
I used to have a running shirt that had " I may be slow, but I am in front of you." emblazed on the back.
Enjoy
gary

That's awesome!

Nice work!! Good call to just run it to complete - don’t overcook it. Races and training for them always caused me injuries. Now I just run without timing or intervals etc. have fun!!

I never weigh fish I catch before tossing them back either.... if I catch one :D

That's not why I fish either...

Saw the "I may be slow..." on a jalopy's bumper sticker decades ago :)

I have not run competitively since HS, back when I was fast

Excellent Cliff. Have fun and all the best for the race.

I do a bit of running myself. Usually just to the car when it's raining.

I did over 200 road races back in the day. I thought I was fast be would be called an advanced hobby jogger. 32:42 best time. My advice is do a negative split. Start comfortable and just pick people off. At 31 I basically peaked for 10ks. Did manage to stay relatively fast doing road miles. At 47 ran my last sub 5 and hung it up. Fun sport!!!

I love that kind of pain and abuse from endurance sports. My best 10k was 52 min. this was when I ran cross country in high school to keep my ticker up for summer road bike racing. Last 10k I did was in my 30s and out of shape. Trained for about three weeks and I suffered through it. Finished and did not walk. Around here, there are always hills included in the route and they hurt like hell. I can't run anymore since I tore my knee. Trying to preserve what I have left in there.

Good luck Cliff. You will enjoy it with the mass amount of people running doing the same thing, some suffering, some smiling.

I never “raced” against others when I ran marathons. It was all personal, I was only challenging myself. I saw the others out there and, yes, my heart sank a little when someone passed me, but my mind was always totally on my own performance.
I still have the participation awards from when I ran. They remind me of what I used to be - sometimes that’s good, mostly it’s not.

Do it while you can Cliff! You won’t regert it!!

Back in the '80's there were fun runs every weekend. Ten bucks would get you a number and a tee shirt. I did a bunch of them with friends; never a chance for me to take the overall, but I almost always managed to finish in the top 25% somehow. Good enough for me.

Have fun Vash! Bloody Marys at the end are a good way to celebrate.

clearly, I have zero clue to what 6.2 miles looks and feels like. I mapped one today, and ran it.

it was only 5 miles according to my GPS watch. faaackkk... my dog was looking at me like WTf every time I missed a corner he was used to.

I think I know how to get closer to 6.2. I'll try it mid week.

I am sub 10 minutes tho with dog pee/poo side excursions and looking for trashcan to toss the baggies.

A mile is pretty far especially when you are on foot. I have a bunch of landmarks in my neighborhood that I know are specific distances from my house.

About 20 years ago, long before GPS watches, I several times ran what I figured was a 5 mile loop in my neighborhood and it made me sore for days. Now with GPS, I found that route is less than 2 miles!

Good luck on your race Vash.

Meaning you're doing 10 min miles that includes the dog? That's respectable in my book. Nice. Yeah, running for an hour is no joke. I think that with some training, I could do 2 hours (half marathon). When we ran, we trained mostly on treadmills in AC in Houston. We did do a couple/few outdoor runs which sucked due to the heat. When we finally ran our 10k in the Seattle area, it was "cold" (~60º-65º) and then right before the start, it started raining. Standing at the start in the cold rain sucked, but the cold rain turned out to be great for the run itself. Exercise when it's hot sucks. Exercise when it's cooler is so much better. I'm pretty sure that I was faster because my body stayed cooler. I'm sure that if I'd been in Houston in 90º+ weather, it would likely have added 5-10 mins to my time.
LOL! Running is one of those things that you want to work up to. And yeah, it's not easy.

hahhah..i lost a bet with my wife with that same conversation. I was all puffed up full plumage. "I just ran 4 miles".

my wife said it was prob closer to 2. we drove the route and it wasn't even two. hahah.

I had to buy dinner.

That sounds like one of those losses that isn't really a loss. Or was your dinner plain grilled chicken breast, plain, steamed veggies, and an ounce of plain, steamed rice? :D

But it was educational!

the loss is she got to pick where we ate. hahha..

LOL! I can see that being a loss. Fortunately, I'll eat just about anything, so my wife could pick pretty much anyplace that she likes and I'd be fine.

I don't have GPS or just don't use them. Usually I just drive the course and stick to it. I can run the same route or ride the same thing for years. this way, I know how to run or ride it and where to turn on the gas for a better workout to my advantage. When I ren, from my parent's house to the blvd through the neighborhood was 1.2 mile. I go right for about 1/2 mile, come back up to home. On the way home, there was a hump of about 1.4 miles then down hill. That hump always hurt because that was where I turn up the gas. I hate running down hill once I found out it was bad for the knees. I ran that loop twice for two years in my last two years of high school every Saturday before dinner.

If anyone is running and wants to know more about their "course", if you've got a smart watch or smart phone that could go along with you, get the strava app. That'll keep track of the distance, time, etc...