Toshi's running blog : Tags : pats_run

On Saturday May 3, I ran Pat’s Run at Leland High School in San Jose.
I was bummed because I did not see Chad who I was planning to run with, but received the following e-mail afterwards:

hey toshi, howd you like pats run? did u see me? i was way in front of you! J/k.
I hurt my back 2 weeks ago so cannot run..just actually walking is irritating but
im getting better!. so i was a spectator and hanging out. the guy who won it
came steaming in at just over 20 minutes!! didnt look very tired either. wow.
I saw you come in and yelled out to you but u were focused on that finish. tried to find u but
lost visual behind bleachers. good job! i bet we would have been real close.
hope to c u at the next race,of course next time running. good luck

So, I wrote him back the following e-mail:

Hi Chad!

You were there?! Aww I should've stayed longer.
Sorry about your back. I hope you get better soon.
The guy who won the race is JT Service. He's a san jose local who ran the
Olympic Trial last year.
The 2nd place guy is Kevin Pierpoint. He was in the Elite 5K race in
November and he also won Almaden Classic last year, but he didn't even stay
for the awards ceremony.
Jose Pina got 6th place. There was this Asian kid who was really fast.

My time
mile 1: 5:31
mile 2: 5:56
mile 3: 5:58
mile 4: 5:34
mile 4.2: forgot to stop the watch

I started out with a guy with a cap who came in 2 places ahead of me. At the
start, he was asking me how fast I was running so I told him I'm shooting
around 5:50 per mile and he said he's running around that time. I started
out too fast at 5:31 so I slowed down and he just zoomed right past me. Mile
2 and 3 had a slight hill and I was running with a guy in a black singlet who
finished ahead of me. I came really close to him going downhill, but he
sped up when I got close. There was like 10 seconds gap between each guy and
everyone was trying to catch the guy in front of them and the gap never
closed.
Here are the race results. I came in 21st place.
http://results.active.com/pages/searchform.jsp?rsID=61891

My next race is on Saturday May 10 at Quicksilver Park. I will be running my
first 50K.
The race starts at 6am at Mockingbird Entrance and my goal is to finish in 5hrs.
My girlfriend will be there to support me too. I will attach the map.
Check here for more info:
http://www.quicksilver-running.com/page2.html

P.S. I beat your time from last year. Booyah!

0 Comments Permalink Tags: pats_run

sup tosh? you better register cuz im running it and know we can proly keep
a prety close pace. its a fun race. just like the almaden 10k but only 4.2!!
perfect starter. I better go and buy some shoes though...my pinky toes are
hangin out!
(Chad's invitation to Pat’s Run)

I've just registered for Pat's Run (http://patsrun.com/) on Saturday May 3. Pat's Run honors memory of Pat Tillman, a pro-football player turned Army Ranger, who was killed by a friendly fire in Afghanistan. I am running the race with Chad, a semi-pro mountain biker who lives in New Almaden where Pat Tillman grew up. Pat's monument stands right across from the entrance to Quicksilver County Park where I bonked last Sunday.

Pat Tillman
I didn't know very much about Pat Tillman until Chad mentioned about Pat's Run. The run starts at Leland High School, where he went to school, and the original Pat's Run started in Tempe, Arizona. Pat is a celebrated hero in Arizona too, because he walked away from a multimillion-dollar contract offer from Arizona Cardinals to join the military after the Sept. 11 attacks. He also ran marathons.

Why 4.2 miles?
Pat's Run is only 4.2 miles. That’s somewhere between 5K and 10K. Why 4.2 miles? It's because he wore the number 42 with the Sun Devils at Arizona State where he got in with a football scholarship. Why not 42 miles or 42K? That would be really cool if the Pat Tillman Foundation gets enough funding to make the run longer. It would get more public exposure too. I can already map out the course starting with a 10K loop on the Los Alamitos Creek trail, then to Quicksilver Park at the New Almaden entrance, do a 10K loop on the trail and back to Leland High School. I’ll run it one of these days!

Chad
Chad is a great guy and a runner. I've run with him in Almaden Classic 10K last year, where he beat me in the last mile, and also in Quicksilver Challenge 10K 9/30/07, where I came late and he went on to get a second place overall. He always says, “sup tosh” and he doesn't even spell my name right, but it's cool.

I'm a bit worried about the race. I haven't been doing any speed training, so I don't know if I can keep up with Chad. The only speed training I've been getting is the run from home to the train station, train station to the office and back with my backpack on (and sometimes with my dress shoes). Let's see if I can wake up early next week.