Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I ran this race last year, but they changed the course this year.  It was raining throughout the night and very cloudy this morning.  I went to where it started last year, and nobody was there.  This is just a neighborhood 5k put on by people I go to church with.  Since I moved, I emailed my friend who did it last year to see if they were going to do it again this year.  He told me they were, but he didn't tell me the starting line had moved.  The stake president didn't want anyone to cross any roads for safety reasons.  So I figured that somebody should've been there because I got there about 6:55am.  When no one was I figured they whimped out and canceled it.  Then I tought, "Come on.  The SGM was held in way worse conditions than this."  So I drove to the park and saw them there.

The race started at 7:45am.  It was great to see my old friends (even though I only moved away 4 months ago.)  As the race started a bunch of little kids took off.  There was a 16 year old rabbit that jumped out to the lead.  After about 200 yards the littler kids tired out.  I was running behind the 16 year old about 20 feet behind him.  After a quarter of a mile I looked behind me and nobody was there.  I know that there were two guys running that were faster than me including the bishop.  Bishop MacKinlay was on my Ragnar team last year.  For whatever reason he decided to run at a 9 min. pace.  He probably ended up going even slower.  And Doug Tueller decided to run with his 8 year old son.  So I decided not to push it too hard since no one else aside from the 16 year old was pushing it. 

They had a drink station set up with no one manning it at the mile marker.  The 16 year old wasn't sure if that was where we were supposed to turn around or not so he stopped.  I caught up to him and said we have to run down to Southern Ave. (another half mile.)  He took off again and I just let him go.  When he turned around I slapped him high-5.  Then I got to the halfway point and started slapping everyone high-5 as I went by them.  I knew everyone was just doing it for fun so there was no need to kill myself.  In my mind though I was going back to the post on the discussion forum about which is worse: a marathon or a 5k?  I think unanimously it was voted that a 5k is more painful.  I thought that I never push myself hard enough for it to hurt as bad as the elite runners say it does so maybe I should.  But I knew that I was in first place out of the adults and with no fear of anyone catching me. 

The 16 year old (sorry, I can't remember his name) ended up finishing in 22:05.  I came in second in 24:21.  That's a little faster than my training pace.  So I'm happy with that.  I might've pushed it harder if Bishop and Doug were running harder, but it was just a feel good fun race.  Even still I got a certificate for beating the Bishop, and I got a medal for first place in my age division.  Now I'm ready to eat turkey!