This is my 5th time running the Rock ‘n’ Roll Los Angeles race, but my first time running the 5K. The good thing with Rock ‘n’ Roll races is that you know what to expect: very big, but very organized race expos, a lot of runners, a staggered starting line to prevent congestion on the course, as well as their notable music along the course and post-race concerts. I ran a total of 9 times since that last race as well as biked 20 miles. I guess the word ‘trained’ can be subjective. In the past I used to run 7 days a week and as long as 20+ miles on certain days. Now I’m lucky if I can run 20 miles for the week! But my results for any type of training is similar, I run very slow during my training runs but when it’s race day, I can pick up the pace. As you can see below, I never ran faster than 8-minute pace in any of my previous training runs. But on race day, I was able to run a 6:42 pace, bizarre right? Not that I’m complaining. I just feel I could be pushing myself a lot more during those training runs. It’s just difficult because getting up at 6AM is hard enough as it is, let alone trying to endure running fast.

The other reason we wanted to run this race is because we had already planned to attend the Comic Con event at the Convention Center the day before the race. I found out that there was a promotion called the Super Hero Challenge where if you attended Comic Con and ran the race, you would get another medal (not including the one you get for finishing the 5K), called the Super Hero Challenge Medal. I’m not one to run races for medals, but I have to admit, the medal was nice!