Bay To Breakers, a little of my history

The Bay To Breakers website is a wealth of information for my times and placements in past races, going back 6 years to 2000. My first race was in the late 80s, but how many races I've run since then, or the exact year of my first race, are long since lost in the mists of time.

Here's my times and placements from 2000 to 2006:

2000
Time: 1:48:36
Place: 17,238 out of 52,356 total runners
6,243 out of 20,265 female runners
Bib #9342
Age: 29

2001
Time: 1:46:31
Place: 14,202
Bib #8323
Age: 30

2002
Time: 1:55:17
Place: 17,639
Bib #7870
Age: 31

2003
Time: 1:57:19
Place: 15,358
Bib #9702
Age: 32

2004
Time: 1:56:34(official), 1:54:41 (actual)
Place: 15,538
Bib #6644
Age: 33
This was my first race since I began working out and dieting. I did not "carb up," which is why there was no improvement over my time the year before.

2005
Time: 1:48:09 (official), 1:37:05 (actual)
Place: 13,576
Bib #4789
Age: 34
I "carbed up" this year and improved dramatically, even taking into account the 10 minutes it took to get across the start line.

2006
Time: 1:31:11 (official), 1:29:44 (actual)
Place: 7,553
Bib #2653
Age: 35
A huge improvement this year. The only major change I made was walking the last leg to work on days I couldn't make it to the gym. This is a fairly flat, easy 1.5 mile walk, but it has made a huge difference in my running ability. At the age of 35, I am in the best shape of my life, even better than about 15+ years ago when I ran my first race.

I'll add one other thing. At the 5 mile marker my watch timer read about 1:02, so I was doing about 5 mph. This includes the Hayes Steet Hill, which really slowed me down - that was a 1/2 mile I had to walk. So I was going along at what for me is a pretty good pace.

Today I am beginning my carb detox now that I don't need a massive number of carbs in my diet. Hopefully I can lose the excess water weight by my weigh and measure on Friday. I'm not even going near my jeans after pigging out on carbs for the last two days; I'm wearing loose skirts this week so I don't asphyxiate. :-p

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