ran the world's fastest 5K this morning. unfortunately it wasn't the world's fastest for me. I decided to run this on the spur of the moment at the expo Saturday afternoon, just so I could say I ran it. Signed up at the expo paying the ridiculous last minute race fee of 50 dollars. That's about 16 bucks a mile. Oh well, it's the 25th anniversary of the 5000 and I was there, so what the heck. The men's masters is the first race of the day, 7:05 AM. I drove down from the avocado farm, arriving at 6:30 and found my Logan training partners Carol Rowe and Paul Wolf who also ran. Carol's race was at 10AM so she kept my cochlear implant for me while I ran, that was nice. Paul and I warmed up about 1.6 miles. Then we went to the start. I learned a valuable lesson here the hard way- do NOT get stuck back in the pack at the start of this race, with 1500+ over eager 40+ year olds with a lot of testosterone and enthusiasm. Runners were supposed to line up based on predicted finish times, but a bunch of amateurs packed the line making for a big mess. Gun went off and I spent about the first 0.75 miles just muscling through the pack to get some space. Lot's of jostling and elbows, very crowded. Things didn't settle down for about a mile. Draper's Dennis Simonaitis was right at the front at the first turn, he ended up second overall in 14:45, just 5 seconds behind the winner who was five years younger than him. Just saw he set the American age group record for 47 year olds, wow!!
Me, I finished in 18:01, 21st in my age group. Not as strong a showing as I would have liked coming from altitude, but I didn't start smart, getting stuck in traffic, I hadn't trained for this race, ran a hard 15 miler the day before, and didn't have my standard race kit (I wore my NB 790 trail shoes). Excuses, excuses.
After the race I bugged out, back to the house, showered, gathered the family, and was on the road to Cache Valley by 8:35 AM. Set a new driving speed record arriving home in exactly 11 hours and 20 minutes (800 miles even). One stop in St George to get gas, that was it. And a few ranch exit potty breaks for the boys and dog. And thus ends another spring break adventure.. disneyland, california adventure, the beach, carlsbad 5000... overall a good week. 
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