Next Up: Lebanon Area Fair 5K race

The Lebanon Area Fair, which is held at the Lebanon Valley Exposition Center, is scheduled to begin on Saturday July 25th and runs through Saturday August 1st. I have to confess I have never been to this fair. It's a very farming centric fair, complete with a rodeo and truck and tractor pools. The 5K race is slated to begin at 9:00 AM on Saturday July 25th 2009.

I am the sixth generation of Evans' which has resided in Lebanon County, however, for some reason have very few known relatives in the area. My great grandfather, Samuel Evans, sold his farm in the 1950's.

An interesting web site I found recently is http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/Running University/Article 1/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm

The website allows you to enter a time for a race or run length you have completed in the past and it extrapolates estimates of how long it would take you to finish runs of other lengths. If you have run races of different lengths you can also compare how well you did relative to each race or run. As can be expected, my performances worsened as the length of the race increased. My best race time was the one mile and my worst race time was the 10k (6.2 miles).

An important caveat with these relative race times is you must train for the length of race in question. For example, based on my one mile time of 6:54, the web site states I should be able to run a half marathon in 1 hour and 50 minutes. At this juncture I do not have 13.1 miles in me. It does give me an idea of how well I could do given my current fitness level.

Since my family is not fond of early morning Saturday races, I will be making this trip alone. This race probably will not have many amenities for the kids as it is a smaller race than the others I have run this year. I will take the time at the race to determine if my kids would like to visit the fair later that evening.

My personal record for a 5K race this year is 25 minutes and 35 seconds. This translates to a average pace of 8:14 per mile. I'd like to run an average pace of 8:05 this Saturday and break 25 minutes for a 5K for the first time.

My weight has dipped below 190 pounds for the last several days. I would like to be down to 182-184 pounds by the end of September for my half marathon in Toronto. Being thirty pounds lighter this fall will contribute to a better race and hopefully increased longevity if I maintain this weight loss.