Who Am I?

I am an avid runner and have been running since I was 15 years old. I began running low to medium distances while on my high school track team, running the 800 meter and 1600 meter races (I was a sub 5 miler and a 2 minute 800 runner). In addition to the track team, I also joined the cross country team. After high school I still wanted to run and decided to start doing road races. I have probably ran a couple hundred 5k races (16.29 PR)along with many 10k's as well. In 2009 I decided to step up my game and try to tackle my first marathon. I will be honest; the only reason I did this was because my father ran a few and I wanted to show him that I could do what he did. I trained poorly for my first one and regret it. If you are going to run a race, train like you want to win. I still continue to run marathons and other distances as well, and every race is a chance for me to better myself.
I started this blog to hopefully communicate with other runners and to shed any knowledge I may have about the sport that can help other runners. I believe running is the best sport and can be a great stress reliever. I encourage all runners to spread the word of our sport and show people why running is so good and why the community of runners has such great people. You can follow me on twitter @byrne1324 or find me on facebook- Shaun Byrne

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Gold Jacket 5K Review:

GOLD JACKET 5K:

When: June 28th 2015

Where: Robert Morris Sports Center, Neville Island

Swag: basic cotton T-shirt
Finishers Medal: This medal is huge. It is made to look like a Super Bowl ring to go along with the nfl theme.


Course: Flat and fast!!!!! The course was an out and back course with no hills. The street was wide enough that you had plenty of room to pass people. One thing I did notice was there was no water stop, for me this was no big deal but some people like to have that option during the race.

Finish area: They had your basic water, banana's, and cookies. Nothing special but they had more than enough for the 1000 runners.

My experience: I went into this race with the plan to just run. I wasn't going to use a pace group or my Garmin. I was just going to run and see what happens. My friend Russ was running his first race so I wanted to make sure I finished and got back on the road to see him finish. I started out at a nice pace of 7:50 for the first mile. I felt really good so I decided to pick up the pace and start picking people off one by one. My split for for the second mile was in the 7:20's. At the turn around I noticed Russ was doing great and wasn't far from the 8:00 pace group. The final mile I found myself grouped in with a few people and didn't realize I let them dictate the pace. My pace dropped into the 7:30's and I ended up finishing with a time of 23:18.. A 7:30 pace per mile. I was pretty excited to see I did good with not training to hard the 4 weeks up to the race.  After I finished I ran back to the finish to watch Russ cross in 25 minutes and some change.

OVERALL: This race was a fast course and a great race to get a medal for an easy 5K. It was a little confusing trying to see the course map since there was problems finding a location for the race. It was a little unorganized for the 1st year but that is expected. I will def. be doing this race again in the future. This race is part of a series and the winner of each city competes at a later date for the championship, which is really cool.  I highly recommend this race and if you are looking for a PR this race is all you.



4 comments:

  1. NICE!!! That's a killer pace!
    That's also a bad ass medal - I'm jealous!

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    1. The medal and the award trophies were probably the nicest I have seen not only for a 5K but for any race. Next year you got to do it

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  2. Sounds like a neat concept for a race. The medal is really neat as well! Great job...too bad you didn't win an age group award. Bet those looked amazing! Next time you'll have to go for the win so you can compete in the championship ;)

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    1. The guy who won was moving and finished in just over 15 minutes.. I don't think I ever have a chance to go for the championship, lol

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