P.F. Chang's Rock and Roll Kickoff Event

There was a kickoff event for the P.F. Chang's Rock and Roll Marathon tonight. I went with Bill, Barry and Greg. There was a small expo, and 1972 Olympic marathon gold medalist Frank Shorter was there to speak and sign autographs. The expo was pretty tiny, and there wasn't much schwag worth picking up. There were a few booths that had nice pint glasses, one place was giving away pizza and the Cyomax booth was giving away free sports drinks, but it was mostly flyers and stuff.

At about 5:45, there was a 5K fun run along the canal. With the Other Half coming up in a week and a half, I didn't want to do an all-out sprint, but a nice evening run with friends sounded fun. The run was a quick out-and-back along the canal banks. Frank Shorter ran it, too, and during his talk he gave everyone permission to brag about beating him if that's how it turned out. He even touched on the state of the economy while he was talking. Boy, that's on everyone's mind!

We got a little bit of a head start on the main pack to avoid being stuck in the crowd. As we took off, it felt like we were doing a pretty quick pace. It wasn't uncomfortable, so I kept up with the other guys. After a quarter mile or so, I was curious how fast we were going, and we were doing a 7:30 pace. Yikes! Waaaaay too fast for me. I slowed to an 8:10 pace, and Barry, Bill and Greg slowly drifted ahead of me. The run was very pleasant. The sun was just dipping below the horizon on the out, and by the time we finished, it was dark. It's great to finally be able to run at a time other than 4AM and not be heat-affected.I finished the 5K in 25:39 (an 8:17 pace), which is a PR for me. Bill finished about a minute faster than me and Greg and Barry finished about 2 minutes faster than me. My calves felt "hot" afterwards, and I was a little worried that I might have gone too hard. But I did some calf stretches in the parking lot, and they felt much better.

Afterwards, the 4 of us went to La Grande Orange Pizzeria at 40th St. and Campbell for some pizza and beer. It's a great little restaurant with good, friendly service, a cozy atmosphere and some dynamite pizza.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 1268 ft Location: -- Elev. Gain: -6 ft Date: 10/09/08 Up/Downhill: [+16/-22] Time: 07:00 PM Difficulty: 1.8 / 5.0 Performance Distance: 3.10 miles Time: 0:25:40 Speed: 7.2 mph Pace: 8' 17 /mi Calories: 451 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 18 +0' 01 7.2 -0.0 +7 ft 2 8' 08 -0' 09 7.4 +0.1 0 ft 3 8' 37 +0' 20 7.0 -0.3 -9 ft end 7' 00 -1' 17 8.6 +1.3 -3 ft Versus average of 8' 17 min/mile

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