Day 2,673: Be the Match 5K

With about a half mile left in the Jan. 20 MLK Day 5K I could feel myself easing up -- I was not ready to run a 3.1-mile race fast.

Even worse, I could see this was true -- about a dozen people passed me at pretty furious paces as I approached the finish line.

Four months later, I can tell I'm a different runner. Today in the Be the Match 5K in Atlantic Station I ran aggressively at a good pace, even breaking free of a pretty congested and slow start. Near the end of the race I was sure there were about three guys who would outkick me but I outran each one to the finish.

My 23:06 finish is the fourth fastest 5K I've ever done, over maybe three dozen races. It was just six seconds from qualifying for Group A of the Peachtree Road Race.

(My Garmin data said I ran 3.26 miles, giving me outlandish pace splits of 7:06 an 6:58 in the second and third miles. I'm discounting this data, which is probably inaccurate because of skyscraper bounce in the area. Over 3.1 miles, a 23:06 finish is about 7:26/mile).

The race ended up being fairly flat as this version of the race eliminated the large hills up Northside and on 17th Street near IKEA.

That said, there were a lot of turns, especially at the end. I remember that I started to sprint after turning into the shopping district off of 17th Street only to learn that we still had to run two blocks, turn and run one block and then run two more blocks before turning to the finish.

Time: 8:04 a.m.
Temp: 52 degrees
Gear: Technical T-shirt, short (Doug Kessler 10K), shorts, Nike Air Pegasus+ 30/A.

Day 2,671: A run on the beach

    It may be hard to see, but I am standing on the beach in a blue shirt with my arms up in the air for the pier cam.

LA JOLLA, Calif. -- Our last morning in San Diego I decided to run about a mile down the beach to get a web cam cache via the Scripps Oceanography Pier Cam.

Normally I usually can pull up these camera images on my smartphone but the site was not compatible with my phone so I had to do it the old-fashioned way -- I had to get to the spot and then call up the wife to capture the image on my laptop.

It had been a while since I'd run on the beach. Luckily with the tide going out (and not many people up at 6 a.m.) the sand near the water was pretty level and flat.

Unfortunately on the way back that was not the case as a bulldozer-like vehicle was tilling the sand behind it. It was a little bit of a challenge but not too bad.

It's usually better for me to run in the morning when I have the chance when I'm traveling. When we got back to Atlanta it was still daylight out but I'm glad I didn't have to worry about a run when I finally got home.

Time: 6:24 a.m.
Temp: 54 degrees
Gear: T-shirt, short (Surgeon General's 5K, 2009), shorts, Salomon Sense Mantra.

Day 2,670: Running in the canyon

SAN DIEGO -- A funeral brought us back to San Diego and in the morning and afternoon I was able to get out into the San Clemente Canyon for some running -- and caching, of course.

The great thing was there were good trailheads (with restrooms) and parking lots to start. Nothing like throwing yourself in the middle of rush hour traffic and not knowing where to park.

The trails were fairly wide and were a mix of dirt and sometimes smooth rocks. It made for perfect conditions for my travel running shoe, the Solomon Sense Mantra.

The picture below is the view from one of the places where I ultimately turned around. From the bottom of this hill it was only 200' to the cache. I walked up it and was totally gassed. The run back was pleasant, although I was worried whether I'd touched any poison oak that liberally was sprinkled along the trails.

I was happy though to get in just under 6 miles from the four different runs I did today. And a fair number of caches to boot.

Time: 7 a.m./3 p.m.
Temp: 70 degrees
Gear: T-shirt, short, shorts, Solomon Sense Mantra.

Day 2,660: Pembroke Pines

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. -- It was fun running along the sidewalk, picking up guardrail caches along the way, until there was no sidewalk.

We flew into Miami for the wife's conference. That left me and the little one free to see the beach ... and get in a run.

At first it wasn't too bad running with no sidewalk. But eventually it got to be too much, so I cut short my plan of running up to 13.4 miles and came back around the perimeter of the park, for a little less than 3 miles.

It was the first time I ran in my Solomon Sense Mantra lightweight trail running shoes. They were intended to replace my everyday walking/caching shoes but when I got them, I realized these are really more like running shoes and less like my heavier Solomon Ultra X3 trail running/hiking shoes. They are excellent for travel and running, though and it is nice to not have to carry a second pair of shoes for as short of a trip as this is.

It was just as well, as when I got back to my car in the park, I realized I left my driver's door and passenger door behind it completely open!

As always, though, it was pretty nice to be running in 70-degree weather in Florida.

Time: 11:46 a.m.
Temp: 77 degrees
Gear: Technical T-shirt, short, shorts, Solomon Sense Mantra.

Day 2,655: Entered the lottery for the Paris Marathon!

Today I saw a link on Facebook to a drawing to run in next year's Paris Marathon. So of course I signed up for the drawing!

I have no idea of the odds for this drawing. I've tried twice to enter the lottery for foreigners for the London Marathon but have not been successful.

There's a great recap of the 2013 race by the blogger DC Rainmaker, who I have relied on for Garmin Forerunner reviews in the past. It includes what happens when there are way less porta-potties for 50,000 runners and lots of great pics -- all while running a 3:23 marathon!

In recent days, I've been trying to just keep my mileage up. It took me two days to recover from the Publix Georgia Half Marathon. After that things seemed to have been normal. I've been taking it easy, just mainly enjoying running but still trying to run more than 40 miles a week.

We're doing three 5Ks and the July 4th Peachtree Road Race but it's nice to know that I don't need to worry about any kind of training schedule in earnest until late June when the marathon training will begin.

Day 2,647: Back on the Silver Comet

DALLAS, Ga. -- I don't know why I let months go by in between running in this very beautiful rails-to-trails area.

Today I had to maintain two of my geocaches so I packed up the stroller and the little one and we headed out here.

Weather was perfect -- about 50 degrees when we set out on the trail. The last time I was out on the trail was on July 15, when I did a little bit on the section in Powder Springs, again to geocache.

We headed west to replace one of my caches then went about .6 mile more to look for another one that we couldn't find. Then we turned around and headed the other way, where there was another cache of mine that I thought was missing (it was there) and a few newer caches for me to find.

There were walkers and bikers and pretty much everyone was friendly. The little one would say "Hi!" to them as soon as they were within sight.

On the way back near the Rambo Trailhead there was a small white object headed toward us. It was one of those small smart cars.

Surely, I thought, no one would be foolish to drive a motor vehicle on this trail. It turned out it was from the local sheriff's office. It's always good to see these areas patrolled as well.

I waved and soon we were back at the trailhead. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Hiram and it marked an excellent way to take advantage of spring's wonderful weather.

Time: 10:20 a.m.
Temp: 50 degrees
Gear: Techincal T-shirt, long (Big Peach 5 Miler), shorts, Nike Air Pegasus+ 30/A.

Day 2,639: Publix Georgia Half Marathon (or, "What 371.67 miles of training will get you")

Four months ago I struggled with the Atlanta Half Marathon, coming within seconds of finishing in over two hours, something I haven't done in more than four years.

Today I was a different kind of cat. The hilly course almost seemed flat to me and even in places where I thought I was going to lose pace I still ran consistent miles. I finished just a minute slower than my best course time of 1:51 and change in 2011 and my finish was a several minute improvement over last Thanksgiving's race.

All that running (371.67 miles) came through. I was extremely happy with this beta test of the program I will use to train for the Oct. 26 Marine Corps Marathon.

This morning I was worried about finding a place to park so I left at 6 a.m. and found a street parking space on Cone Street at 6:15 a.m. That meant I had a bunch of time before the 7 a.m. race. People were not even in the corrals when I walked over there. I tried to do a warm-up mile but was so tired that I ended up just walking around after .2 mile.

It's kind of weird to be downtown when it's dark out. I just waited around in the corral until we started to move forward. I took it easy for the first two miles but it was extremely congested anyway. On Central Park Street, in the old days of the ING you could run up both sides of the street. This time they only had one side open so that was a little congested. This used to be one of my most dreaded parts of the race. I went up these hills like it was nothing.

Because the Edgewood Avenue bridge is still closed, we detoured down past Jake's Ice Cream and then up Krog Street to Edgewood. There's a bit of a hill here but it didn't matter much.

Going up Freedom Parkway, I took to the curb going up the hill to pass people. One lady seemed surprised like I was pushing so early but I was just running my pace.

Off of Freedom Parkway to North Avenue there was a water station and volunteers were shouting "Sport Beans." Only I didn't see any so I kept on running. At this point I was debating eating my GU gel early but didn't.

At North Highland and Ponce de Leon, something happened that I think only has happened to me once before in a race -- an ambulance with sirens blaring crossed the intersection so the police officer at that spot halted runners to let the vehicle go by.

I finally at the GU gel at the top of the hill on Virginia Avenue. Running down North Highland and Virginia avenues seemed like a chore. But I knew that my family and our parents would be waiting there -- it was a nice place to stop and give the little one a hug. Another kind runner took our picture and then apparently after I continued down the course, little K took mommy's hand and ran all the way to Monroe Avenue, all the while imitating the huffing and puffing of the runners that passed him by.

The hill on 10th Street out of Piedmont Park seemed hard (add the fact the GU gel was churning my stomach at this point) and so did the hills on Juniper Avenue to 5th Street. There was only one other runner including myself pressing here. I ran hard up North Avenue by Bobby Dodd Stadium and there was only one huge hill left to Means Street.

At this point, somewhere around Mile 11, I had a slight tinge in my left calf muscle, which I guess was from not stopping at any of the water/Powerade stations the entire run. It kind of kept me from stepping up my pace after Mile 12 although I cautiously added power, especially in the last half mile of the race.

I was very happy with my finish but at the same time really feel this is too hilly of a race to do every year. The training really did pay off and almost eight hours after I finished the run, my legs are not sore, which is a huge difference compared with each of the other 23 half-marathons I've run in.

Time: 7:02 a.m.
Temp: 55 degrees
Gear: Technical T-shirt, short (Honolulu Marathon in training '14), shorts, Nike Air Pegasus+ 30/A.