This morning I decided to run a local 5k. I don't feel like I'm in race shape for any distance. My training since the marathon 6 weeks ago has been very lacking while I've been keeping it easy to work through some lingering injuries. Being a first time local race I wouldn't have been surprised to only have a few show up. The woman putting it on works with my wife and the race was a fundraiser for special olympics and she has 2 kids that compete so I thought I should support them. I was surprised to see that they ended up with 80 to 100 participants. It was about 33 degrees at start time. I had gone knowing there likely wouldn't be any competition and thought I would just be getting in a nice tempo run. After a 2 mile warmup, the race started and I had 3 or 4 kids running ahead of me. I figured they would last less than 1/4 mile but was surprised when 2 of them were still keeping the pace after 1/2 mile where I was at 6:00 pace and they were running about 15 yards ahead of me. We all must have slowed and hit the first mile in 6:17. As we got near the turn around I passed one of them and caught up to the lead kid. I talked with him a bit and found out he was a freshman at Grace High School and he had just missed qualifying for state in cross country by 2 places. The state meet was today. We hit the second mile in 6:22 and continued running side by side most of the way to the finish. I picked the pace up a little more toward the end of the 3rd mile and he wasn't about to let me go. With about .2 to go I picked it up a lot more and he finally dropped back. I finished the 3rd mile in 6:11 and the last .16 at 5:09 pace. This was the same course they do the biathlon on and I have measured it with my bike computer that is very accurate and get 3.16 miles. It was fun to have some competition and I'm sure it motivated me to run a little faster than I probably would have otherwise. For first place I won a very nice Nike sports duffel bag that had a 40.00 price tag on it so turned out to be a worthwhile morning. After getting home I ran another 5 to make it 10 for the day.
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