Sunday, September 28th to Saturday, October 4th: 15.6 miles run

I ran 3 times this week:

Sun: 7 miles, 56:22, run around neighborhood, easy, 60F, sunny, calm, no stops, 8:03 pace
Tue: 5.5 miles, 43:14, run around neighborhood, easy, 60F, misty, calm, no stops, 7:52 pace
Sat: 3.1 miles, 21:36, Safe Journey 5K, 45F, hard, sunny, calm, no stops, 6:58 pace

I ran the Safe Journey 5K in Fairport this morning. I have a good history in this race ... I either pull a hamstring or set a PR the two times I have run it. Anyway, it was a perfect fall morning, 40F when I headed out. I got there in plenty of time. I wore my new Brooks pants and a long sleeve tech shirt along with light mittens and a hat. Race conditions were 45F, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, calm. The start was good, first mile in 6:39. I latched onto a guy who was running the same pace and just kept up with him for the rest of the way before passing him in the final stretch. I was just starting to get a bit tired but then I saw the lift bridge in the distance and kept it in gear with a kick at the finish. Result ... no stops, a PR of 21:36, 6:58 pace!! My first 5K of sub 22 and sub 7 pace! I was 24th overall out of 225 and 4th in my highly competitive 50-54 age group (5th place was 1 second behind me). Oh, as usual ... an excellent race by Fleet Feet of Rochester. Overall results here, age group results here.

You would thing that everything is OK in my running world ... you would be wrong. I still am troubled by a slight hamstring ache that gets worse when I run long. I didn't notice it in this 5K.

As I posted last week I have a new job. I am working as a contractor through Burns at Synergy. Synergy won a Printer Fleet Management contract with ITT to take care of all their printers. I will be working as a Printer Concierge taking care of the consumable needs of all the printers (paper, toner, etc) in 4 buildings. I, along with the break/fix engineer, will also be upgrading all the old printers to the Lexmark brand. So I should be keeping out of trouble.

I watched the vice presidential debates between Palin and Biden on Thursday night. It was more of the same ... the Republicans trying to spread FUD to stay in power and the Democrats trying to give America hope for the future. My feeling ... Obama 08, 12. I must say though that Palin did hold her own for the most part ... though sometimes she seemed too much like a McCain cheerleader.

Oh, stop the presses! The Buffalo Bills are 4-0 with wins over Seattle, Jacksonville, Oakland and St. Louis. Three of the wins have been fourth quarter comebacks to boot. They play in Arizona tomorrow.

Update: the Bill are now 4-1 with a loss to Arizona. A complete nightmare of a game with their QB knocked out on the third play.

Keeping active, Doug