Old Man Still running

In San Francisco on business. Treadmill at 7:15 pace.  My son Ryan opened his mission call last night -- to Guatemala.  My grandfather was the first mission president there in 1952, going there with Spencer W. Kimball to open the mission. My grandfather built up the Church there and built the first meetinghouse (recently demolished). His son, my uncle, also served as a mission president there.  So, it really is a great inspired call for our family.

Tonight I went to dinner with my Bay-area sibblings.  Two sisters and a brother.  I don't see them very often.  It was a lot of fun.

12 on the treadmill in the morning.  In the late afternoon after my conference, I hit the pavement of San Francisco.  For some reason running on city streets just seems wrong and makes me feel uncomfortable, not safe.  All the people, all the cars, it just seems weird.  Pretty funny that I feel much more at home running in the mountains during the middle of the night with the moose and mountain lions.

I ran along the bay, from Bay Bridge to Golden Gate Bridge and back.   Lots of people running by 7 p.m.

No running today.  Me right hamstring is a little sore from the run yesterday.  No reason to push it.

Got up, ran a couple miles on the treadmill to test out the hamstring.  There was no pain so I decided to go do a 5K in Provo to get some speed work in.  It was a nice race with about 250 runners.  Runners Corner was a sponsor so many of the fast runners from the Sojourner's running club were there (I'm a member).  Michael Vick, probably one of the fastest runners in Utah County won for the third week in a row in the races I've been in. 

At check-in, the young guy asked my age (51) and commented, "boy, you don't look that old!"  That made my day. 

I took off just behind a pack of about 5 Sojourner's runner girls in pink.  I hung behind them pretty well for the first mile, clocked in 5:45.  I think that is my fastest unaided mile since age 18.  The girls pulled ahead except for a couple that I kept in my sights for the entire race. Mile 2 was clocked in about 6:39, and mile three in about 6:36.  

This is only the 8th 5K I've ever run and during the last mile I felt pretty good.  Usually it feels like I'm going to die.  I then knew that a PR and sub-20 was a real possibility.  I wasn't red-lining but kept the pedal down.  I almost reeled in a young Sojourner girl.

I finished in a 5K PR of 19:51.   I was 18th overall, finishing not far behind the fast young runners.  It looked like most, of the runners ahead were Sojourner club runners.  I placed first in my age group and won a $20 gift certificate.

Finally I broke 20.  I had a goal to break 20 before going to the grave, so now the grim reeper is after me.  Wait, not so fast, I still want to go sub-20 in a 100-mile race....that is sub-20 hours. 

Looks like all systems are go for Ogden Marathon.  I'll just do tune-up runs this week.  I'll be bold and state my goal.  I really hope to approach 3:15 at Ogden.  If I can do that, I can come very close to placing in my age group.