When Saturday Comes

Saturday will be my first race of the Spring, the St. Malachi 5 mile run, which is considered the first big race of the year in these parts. The course isn't the fastest in the world, especially when the course changed in 2009. Before that, the race was still hilly, but we enjoyed a decent downhill stretch in the last two miles before the uphill finish. My best time on the old course was 28:40 in 2008. The race is a good gauge for predicting how I run in the Meteor 10K in April. In 2009, I ran 29:00 at St. Malachi and 36:06 a month later (pretty much the same pace but 1.2 miles longer). In 2010 I ran 29:39 and then 36:14. I feel if I can run in the 29:00-29:20 range on Saturday, I should be able to break 36:00 in April. When I ran 36:06, the conditions weren't so good and I probably could have run around 35:45. Workouts have been going well since my 4 x 1200 session -- good steady runs at 65-70% of max HR. We'll see what Saturday brings, or as The Undertones once sung: "When Saturday Comes"