Race stats explained
Yesterday many people from all over the world ran 26 miles. I am not that cool and i only ran 5. But still i feel pretty good about it. Sure, i run five miles lots of times, especailly in the morning before work, but yesterday i was racing, and that meant i needed to go, like, way faster.
Here is my score as it appears on the list on coolrunning.com:
165 165 LEAH BERNSTEIN 7/19 F2029 LEXINGTON MA 39:19 7:52
Explained:
165 = the place that i came in the race. 164 people finished before me (the fast bastards) but 286 people finished after me, which doesn't mean a lot except that i'm not the fastest, but pleanty of people are slow.
165= the number that i wore on my chest, assigned to me by the order in which i signed up for the race. Dan concluded with glee that i was the only racer who placed exactly the same as my number. I didn't think that was particularly exciting, since my number was 165, and who can get excited over placing 165th, even if it is your own number. Next year i'm going to sign up way earlier and get, like, number 10.
7/19 = i placed 7th out of 19 people in my age group: women 20 - 29years old (that's what the F2029 means.) Since there weren't that many of us running, i don't really know what to make of that score except i hope next year i will do better and be more around the top 3. (i didn't even see anyone else running of my age group while i was on the course! They must have totally wasted me!)
39:19 = this was my total finishing time, 39 minutes and 19 seconds. This was pretty good for me for a five minute mile. It means i ran a...
7:52 minute mile average. This is actually the fastest mile i've ever been timed at, for the record. In high school i ran one mile at 8:15, and i thought that was pretty good at the time (what a lame-ass i was.) For my 10K last march, i ran 8:50 average for 6.3 miles, and i was all excited for doing under 9 minutes. Now that i did under 8 minutes, i not only feel pretty cool for running faster now, but pretty lame for the times i got in my other races. i realize now that my previous goals were wicked out of wack with actual potential performance. I mean, i ran this fast and still sprinted at the end and didn't even throw up. I'm going to have to step it up in the future.
Anyway, that's these times explained. Today my calves are a little sore, but all around i'm more tired from packing up to move. Next year i'll be so well rested from living in our big new house, maybe i'll run the marathon!