Beautiful, warm Thanksgiving morning. None of the kids wanted to participate this year, so I got to race for a change. I jogged to the start line for a warm-up; about 1.5 miles. I forgot my watch.
That's a great strategy for being lazy. But I found guys to run with that were very conversational about their paces for a while. They faded by mile 2. Then I ran with a guy who BQed at St. George, running a 3:22 in his debut. We stayed together for a couple miles, but he faded. I passed a couple in the 5th mile, got passed a couple times. By the last .7, I was humming pretty good, and catching up to a group of 5. We overlapped the 5k course by now, and it was really tough getting around everybody. I quit trying, and cruised in. Lackadasical start and finish cost me 30 sec.
But really I was trying to get a benchmark of my (lack of) fitness right now. I managed to run 6:50 pace, so there it is. Today I'm really sore in my back, legs and feet. Running 8 mph on the treadmill isn't like racing 9.5 mph.
Wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm glad I raced alone, instead of skipping altogether.
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