Miramar Speed Circuit

Today I went to miramar speed circuit to race go karts with my roommate Elan and two of his dermatology buddies Andrew and Gagik. I acutually worked with Gagik last year when he was a prelim at UCSD. It was a lot of anticipation as we waited for the race to begin, watching other people do warm-up laps and trying to talk strategy. However, it's hard to remember anything about when to corner when I (as well as Andrew and Gagik) never drove go-karts before. Man, those little suckers can go, up to 40 mph! It was my first race, and I was surprised how tiring it was. No power steering means that my arms got a pretty good workout. All that headgear equals being drenched when we finished. Unfortunately, we came in 7th (last!!!, but 3 teams got disqualified for too much bumping and other illegal stuff). You can see some pictures here. It was a lot of fun, maybe next time we won't finish last. Gagik got the best lap of 35.076 sec, but the fastest lap was 32.206! My best was 36.06 sec.

http://picasaweb.google.com/flai740/080825MiramarSpeedCircuit

My first race

I just remembered that I ran the 2003 Davis Turkey Trot when I started medical school. My time for the 5K was 29:40 at 9:32 pace, with a rank of 685/1861. I made fairly significant improvement even though I'm now 5 years older. I'll try to run more races, and hopefully I'll steadily get faster. My eventual goal is to hit the 7 minute mark for the mile.

http://www.changeofpace.com/race_times/2003/TT/5kover.txt

Race results

So the results are official, with a time of 1:05:01 and 8:08 pace. If you go down, rank number 286, the guy was 84 years old! We were cheering him on when he crossed the finish line. I would love to be able to still run races at that age.

http://www.sdtc.com/results/2008_bp8n3_results-all.pdf

54th Balboa Park 8 mile run

I just returned from the Balboa Park 8 mile run. I wanted to run America's Finest City half marathon, but it was sold out. Well, 8 miles is a long run regardless. Not sure if I'll be able to finish the half. I got to Balboa Park around 6:45am, which was the earliest I've woken up in the past 2 months. I was actually pretty awake and alert, which helped. After registration, it was time of anticipation as we waited for the start at 7:30. Approximately 290 runners participated in the 8 mile race. There was only one time marker and I was at 3'30" for the first half mile. I was thinking, wow, I'm going at a good pace, but probably will come to haunt me at the end. At the 2 mile mark, I was tired! Half of the race was on dirt, with way too many hills. I kept at a decent pace, and was surprised how many people kept passing me. Around 3.5 miles, we were at the entrance to SD Zoo. This was where runners make a 1 mile loop and come back to the same route. I saw the first place guy, he was already a mile ahead of me! Throughout the run at the park, I realized how many people come just to jog and exercise. The weather was great, overcast day so that it's not hot. Come the 6 mile mark, we had to run up this enormous hill. I didn't remember the hill being so big when we came down! I almost didn't make it to the top. By 7 miles, I was thinking that I've never ran this far in one setting in my life. Everyone started to pick up the pace for the last mile, and I had no other choice but to follow. Finally, I see the finish line. I passed a guy right at the last second. It felt like a photo finish for #104. So... that's my rank. 104. Not great, but not too bad considering that this was my first race and I didn't train. The final time came down to 65'01", which is approximately 8'13" per mile. I think I'll run other races now, get my time faster, and maybe even consider the half marathon again.




Sponsored by SDTC, San Diego Tract Club. So many people are involved in this.




Start of the race, where we looped around the Aerospace Museum


Finally, the finish line!