AM There is a local 5k tonight so I took it easy this morning other than a few strides to jump start my legs. I have no expectations of the race tonight and am just going to support the charity that they are raising money for.
PM This was a very small race but will hopefully grow over the years because it was a lot of fun. I ran it in part to help reignite the passion for running and partly to contribute to the JDRF. I have been in a motivational slump for quite a while but have felt a flicker inside over the past week and hoped a decent race would help. On the other hand, a poor performance could be devastating. After dropping my kids off at their cousins, I drove to the rec center and then ran to the starting line and added a little more for a total of 1.4 miles. The thermometer in my car said 40 degrees but it was getting colder because the sun was going down. I was wearing shorts, long sleeve shirt, gloves and bells on my shoes. I actually felt very comfortable after my warm up run. I think that I was the only one there wearing shorts. I took this as a good sign because somebody super serious about the run would consider this perfect racing temperature and would be wearing shorts. There were only a couple of guys that I thought could be trouble. One was a young kid (probably 14 or 15) whose mom was really concerned about him getting lost. She told him several times to stick with the lead pack so he didn't get lost. I asked how fast he planned on running and he said around 20. The race started and he and I took off together. He took a small lead after a couple of hundred yards and I thought we were in for a real race. He missed the first turn and I yelled at him to turn. He overshot the next turn and I had to yell again to get him on the right track. After 3/4 mile he started to back off and I was able to pass him. Apparently I hit the first mile in 5:49 (I didn't look at my watch at all during the race). It really didn't feel that fast. It was slightly down hill but I am surprised that it was that quick. Made a turn just past the 1 mile marker and I was able to see how much of a lead I had. It wasn't huge but I could tell that it was growing. At this point I decided to not kill myself and run just fast enough to win. Second mile was 6:14 and I was just in cruise control. Mile 3 had a slight uphill and I was feeling very unmotivated so it was slow (6:45). I feared that somebody was coming up on me but it was too dark to see and the bells on my shoes drowned out the potential sound of footsteps. At mile 2.5 I started to feel a little pukey and realized that the cheese fries that I had for lunch were a bad idea. I thought about Kimmy's daughter getting nauseous at the same point in the Thanksgiving race and figured if she could tough it out that I should be able to. I started to pick up the pace a little as I made the last couple of turns. I saw the finish line and was excited to finally be able to break the tape in a race. Unfortunately there was no tape to be broken. Just a couple of people hanging out at the finish line. Lora from the running club was there so at least somebody I knew was there to witness my first victory in 20 years. Second place came in at 20:01 so he apparently wasn't too far behind. While it wasn't an outstanding performance I was glad to finally win a race (even though it was small without a lot of competition).
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