18.12 mi, 3:00:13, 9:57 avg
This morning was the Sunshine Athletic Conference meet for Thomas and the Mitchell Mustangs, held in Dade City, FL at the Withlacoochee River park. Race started at 8:40 after the varsity girls meet. Race started and ended in a big field with the course running into the woods on a double track trail, winding around a bit and then exiting back into the field at about 2.8 mile marker with the rest of it on the field enough to finish the race. I arrived just after 8:00, said hi to Jenny and then headed onto the trail to find the 1 mile marker so I could get his split. I was still close enough to hear the gun go off but the stopwatch on my iphone malfunctioned with it flipping back n forth between 0.1 and 0.2. But fortunately, one of the coaches had rode his bike out to the 1 mile marker and was calling out times. The leader came through at about 5:07, with about a 15 second gap to the lead pack. Zeke (5:40) was first for Mitchell, then Spencer and Tom (5:55) was right behind Jarod.
There was only one way in and out where I was standing so I waited for the runners to go by before heading back toward the field. Took me a little longer than I had hoped and got to the finish line just after Tom had crossed. He knocked off another 1.2 seconds from his old PR to finish at 18:55.4, 3rd place for the team and 7th place overall for the conference. Next up is the regional meet in two weeks at McEthan Lake Park which was the last CC meet that Andy and Tom competed in together.
I hung out for a little bit and then got my running clothes and waited for the JV meet to finish then I started out on my run. I should have been doing a 20 mile run but I thought maybe 30k would be good enough, so 6 loops around the CC course and I could swing by my car for drinks so I could run without carrying anything. At the start of the first loop it seemed kind of crazy but I gradually got into it. I missed a turn toward the end of the first loop and did not end up in the field but found myself back on the course. Because of this my total for 6 loops would only be 18.1 miles instead of 18.6 miles. After the second loop I stopped for a cold drink at my car and then ran loops 3, 4, and 5 mostly steady and no big issues although it was starting to get a bit warm. At the start of the 6th loop it was hot and I wanted to be done, I had some slow miles but picked it up for the last mile and finished strong.
It was great to see Mitchell (both varsity and JV teams did really well) and I somehow managed to get in a long run (as well as a trail run) at a new location.
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