Posts Tagged ‘funny/viper challenge’

Your Kung Fu Is Better Than Mine

Despite my best efforts, Viper crushed my 5k time yesterday. It was much like the old evil kung fu master being defeated by the young guy’s combination of tiger and crane styles:

So to Viper I bow, and say, “Your kung fu is superior.”

No Excuses

Beautiful day in Sacramento for the No Excuses 5k. I had a decent warmup, we had a beautiful rendition of the national anthem, and Mayor Kevin Johnson gave us a warm welcome. The Kings desperately need a point guard more than we need a mayor, and even in his 40s, Johnson would be an upgrade at the position. Anyway, off we went.

On Friday I mentioned that race day adrenaline would improve my time, and boy, did it ever. But it was also my undoing. I covered the first mile in 7:31, which was faster than any single mile I ran in training for this race. I promised I would head for the puke threshold, and I did. The second mile was a 7:52.

Now I’ve covered two miles five seconds faster than any two training miles I’ve run. Unfortunately, there was still 1.1 to go. The funny thing is I didn’t feel myself slowing down. Though it was more of a struggle, I thought I was moving my legs just as fast. The watch doesn’t lie, though. My third mile was an 8:32, and my finishing kick didn’t improve on it (0:51).

Unofficial time – 24:46.

No word from Viper yet, but I have to think he beat this. I have no regrets, however. I chopped nearly 4 minutes off my 5k time in less than three weeks.

Once we both have official times, we’ll have the appropriate victory/concession blog posts. Thanks for following along. It was really a blast.

UPDATE: It’s official. 24:46.3. The results are listed by age-graded rankings, which made me 305th of 1057. My age-graded time was reduced to 21:40. But before you think old guys like me reap a rankings benefit from the age-grading system, let me clue you in. The age- and sex-grading lifted me past 35 faster runners, but lifted 75 slower runners past me.