5K Personal Best

It had been a long time since I ran a fast 5k. All my other personal bests -- for 10k, half-marathon, 8k -- were done in recent times i.e. 2009 (and in India). Only my 5k personal best was recorded way back in November of 2008 in lovely Oregon, with a time of 24 mins and 47 seconds.

So yesterday, I decided it was time to go all out and run a fast 5k.

Venue of run: Bagmane Tech Park.

All warmed up, I switched on my Garmin. It started looking for satellites, and I started getting impatient. Then suddenly it beeped: it had located the satellites but the batteries were low. Darn it! Rather than recharging it, I decided to start my run.

1 KM down I see that my pace was 5:10 -- more than 10 seconds slower than the target pace. I increase my pace. Then when I look down again, I see that the expensive gadget had decided to shut itself off. Darn it! Darn it! Darn it!

I was frustrated, but I still went on to complete my run. Nobody will never know, what my exact time was, but I decided to approximate it to 26 minutes (modest, humble me).

The scene moves on to today evening. I decide to pull the same stunt as yesterday. But this time around I remember to charge my Garmin. See ... I'm smart.

Venue of run: NGV (National Games Village).

NGV is a residential locality. So there were people all over the place and I had to dodge, sidestep and slow down to avoid the many walkers, strollers, cell-phone-babblers, aunties with sports shoes, cyclists, sleeping dogs, parked vehicles, moving vehicles etc. But on the plus side, you have many female beauties sauntering along -- keeps you motivated (a huffing, puffing, sweating runner does turn girls on, right? right?).

Interestingly and sadly, I didn't spot any other runner.

At the end of it, I managed a time of 24 mins and 39 seconds. It was a tough run for a shave of a measly 8 seconds. I'm happy, but I need to get better.