By popular demand: So around Wednesday, I heard that a few folks from Auburn were going to head over to Montgomery to run a 5k on Labor Day, so when I finally made the decision to stay in town for the long weekend, I figured that I might as well head over there with them to get a little leg work in. That being the case, I joyously awoke at 4:30 to eat, find any clean (or at least only moderately smelly) running clothes, and stumble outside before Blake Henry, a friend and fellow runner in town, cruised over to pick me up at 5:25 (I love getting <3 hours of sleep the night before races; I think most of my PR's are from similar situations...hmmmm....) In any case, we got to the race site around an hour before the start time, got registered, and I began my warmup, which simply consisted of running a loop of the course to get a general feel for it and to knock loose any... um.......business that needed to be tended to before the race. As I covered the route, the first mile presented itself as the obvious challenge in the race, being mostly uphill, but the rest of the course was relatively tame. After I finished up with the pre-race business, I met David Wishunt, another AU grad student that ran for Syracuse during his undergraduate days, who became the eventual winner. As the start of the race approached, David and I discussed running goals, and I found out that he was shooting for a sub-2:20 next summer. I am always amazed by the fast guys. Once the race got underway, David took the obvious lead, and after the first quarter or so, I was in second, steadily plugging away at the first mile. At about the 0.7 or 0.8 mile point, David actually missed a turn, and I didn't realize it until I was at the turn and saw the arrow, so I called out that he missed it, and after a few repititions of what I was saying (and several exaggerated and apparently obfuscating gestures), he figured out what I was trying to tell him and turned around, although he had already run around 100 or 150 meters downhill past the turn. I made the turn, and suddenly I was the rabbit, taking both the first and second mile splits in the lead. The second mile was fairly unremarkable other than a pretty steep downhill that reminded me how out of speed shape I am by my terribly ungraceful leaning back and flailing legs during the descent into downtown. Somewhere between 2.25 and 2.5, David finally regained the lead (having run an extra 300m, half of which were uphill!), and ran away with it, although I couldn't help but find the humor when, at an intersection about a quarter mile from the finish, he yelled back to me "Right?", and I had to yell back up to him "No, Straight!" to keep him on course. Also, during the third mile, an issue that had been apparent since early in the race almost caused a real problem. With the exception of about a quarter mile during the first mile, the race had been run entirely sans police escort, which in turn meant no intersection control. This might not pose a problem in races run through residential neighborhoods, but this one was run mostly through downtown Montgomery, and I constantly found my head on a swivel looking for cars at intersections when I had a red light (I managed to not have to stop, I just made a few somewhat tentative crossings). In any case, just after David passed me, he was still only about 10 yards or so ahead when we crossed an intersection, and a car zoomed right through it, nearly hitting David and forcing both of us to swerve backward into the intersection to avoid it. Just what you want to happen 2.5 miles into a 5k. I love race memories...
David ended up finishing in 16:53, having put forth a pretty solid effort, considering the extra distance covered, and I wound up with a 17:09 for second, although I think I had a little left in the tank, because at the finish line, I managed to take a rather large penultimate step, and then launch myself into the air to give a heel click at the finish line (man, I wish somebody had gotten a photo...), which thoroughly amused the folks standing at the finish line. We waited at the finish for the rest of the Auburn crew to finish before David, Micah Mauldin (another AU student), and I jogged another lap of the course (which was apparently 3.16 miles long, according to three different people's Garmins) for a cooldown. After we all got done running, the award presentation stuff was pretty longwinded, but that was made slightly more bearable given the primary sponsor of the race, Budweiser, which was providing a good breakfast of champions to go along with the hotdogs that were being grilled for us. All in all, it was a fun race, a good way to celebrate Labor Day, and I think a good time was had by all...
| 