Running with Eric

On Saturday morning I rant the St. Patrick’s day themed Running of the Green, to kick of the 2024 racing season. I finished the five mile course in 41:18 and 414th place.

I was actually a little disappointed with this time given that I was a minute slower than last year, but I still was half a minute ahead of my last five mile race.

My training has felt good recently, even if it has been more focused on the marathon distance than on shorter races like this. Reflecting this training my pace throughout this run was fairly consistent, starting out at an eight minute pace and only slowing to an 8:16 average by the end.

Hopefully this is just the start of an exciting and fast 2024.

On Saturday morning I ran the 5 mile Running of the Green in 40:06. This was slightly slower than my five mile race in January, but this was still a time that I was happy with as it was over seven minutes quicker than the same race last year.

I ran the first mile of this race in 7:30, but had slowed down to an 8 min/mile average by the time I reached mile four. I then really pushed to hold onto the eight minute pace leader for the final mile and to finish with an 8:01 overall pace. The course had gotten a lot of snow the night before, but was melted just enough to not really impact my run. Hopefully this is my last race in the snow until after Thanksgiving.

Two years ago the Runnin’ of the Green was the first (of many) races to be canceled due to the pandemic. After having my registration be deferred, not once but twice, I have finally, finally run this race again. Hopefully this is the start of a more normal, more predictable year.

As cathartic as it was to be running in this event again, the morning of the race my expectations were kind of low. I have gotten very few training runs in during the past three months, and awoke to find the streets covered in snow. However, once the race started and I got going, I felt pretty good and was glad to be back to racing after a four month hiatus.

I finished with a time of 47:29 for the five mile course. While this was six minutes slower than when I last ran this course in 2019, I exceeded by goal of staying under ten minutes per mile.

My next race is going to be the Flower City Half Marathon in April.

On Saturday morning I ran the five mile Running of the Green race for the fourth time. My finish time of 42:19 was quicker than last year, but still behind my time from 2016.

The race had pace leaders this year, and while I wanted to run eight minute miles, that felt like starting far too close to the front. Inevitably I ended up catching up him by the first mile anyhow. I fell back from this pace before the turnaround, but I still felt good with my speed overall. The run felt pretty consistent and was a finish time I was ok with given my limited winter training.

On Saturday morning I ran Johnny’s Runnin’ O’ the Green for the third time. I finished the five miles in 43:09, which is quicker than I was in 2013, but slower than 2016.

While I already knew that I was out of shape, I now have the data to prove it. Now that season has restarted, I will be running the Spring Forward 15k next week.

My first road race of 2016, was Johnny’s Runnin’ O’ the Green which has a remarkably high 6:10 ratio of apostrophes to words. I finished the 5 mile course in 38:34, which is just 13 seconds off of my PR at this distance that was set at the Turkey Trot in November. It has been three years since I last ran this particular course, and I greatly improved on my time from then.

My next race is a 15k at the Spring Forwards Distance Run in Mendon Ponds.