Was running a little later than I wanted to this morning for the race...ended up having to park about 1/4 mile down the road from the starting area. Oh well...good for a small warm-up jog.
I learned my lesson in the half-marathon about fiber for breakfast on race morning, so I had a couple pieces of bread and butter (wheat, but not mega-whole-grain) and a banana. I went to the bathroom right before leaving the house, and hoped that I'd have an uneventful run.
Lots of familiar faces - Kyle and Sheriff Gene Kelly from church, a couple guys from Konecranes, and State Rep Ross McGregor (running his first 5K, go Ross!). I made sure to line up BEHIND Kyle...that guy can fly! Of course, the fact that his legs are about twice the length of mine doesn't hurt. =)
It was already pretty warm, at least 70, and even with all the weather fronts that have gone through it's still humid. Welcome to summer in the Midwest. =P
Started out too fast, as usual...there wasn't an official mile marker for mile 1, just a couple of race volunteers trying to work a stopwatch. Ah, small community charity runs... I wasn't sure what they called out, but the people right in front of me said, "I think they said 8:15" to which I responded, "Then there are going to be some pigs flying up ahead!" Judging by my watch, I think they'd actually said 10:15, which is still a bit too fast for me to maintain over 3.1 miles at this point.
I tried to slow my pace, but I felt so good it was hard to...also in the heat and humidity I wanted to just get it over with. Also without good mile markers it was hard for me to judge my pace. I kept up a pretty good pace through the water station which was at about 1.75 miles, drank about a third of the water and tried to pour the rest on my head, but missed. =)
When I hit the mile 2 marker, the race volunteers (same ones who were struggling with the stopwatch before - apparently they'd given up) saw me look at my watch, and called out incredulously, "Are you tracking your time?!" I said I was, and they asked what I was showing for my time. At that point I was showing 20:15...still way too fast.
Shortly afterward, despite trying to tell myself that I only had a mile to go and I could do it, I kind of ran out of steam. I had to take a couple of walking breaks which was frustrating. I kept trying to tell myself that this was just a training run, I wasn't running it for time, or to beat anyone in particular, I was just doing it as a tune-up (and an early one at that) for the marathon in October. But as one of the guys from Konecranes put it, "When there's a number on your shirt, and a clock at the end, it's a race."
I was behind this older lady with horrible form (arms and legs flailing all over the place, I kept waiting for her to either hit herself in the face or trip over her feet) at the beginning of the race, passed her at about 1.25 miles, was ahead of her until the last half-mile or so, when she passed me again and I couldn't catch her. She beat me by a place. I'd like to see how fast she could run if she fixed the form...
Kyle got first in his age group for men...we passed and hi-5'd somewhere in the middle. He has a great stride...he lopes, almost...just does it really really fast. The Konecranes guys were several places ahead of me, but I made it in a few places before Gene and several before Ross, but he made it and says he wants to do it again.
I'm still waiting for my official time from http://www.keysports.net/, but I powered through the last 50 yards or so and as I passed the clock I think it was just ticking past 32 minutes. My 5K PR before today was 34:45.
NEW PERSONAL RECORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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