So I'm in Sheridan Wyoming, never heard of it have you? This is the small hometown my wife grew up in, closest "big city" is Billings Montana. This week in Sheridan is Rodeo Week, pretty much the biggest thing that ever happens here, shops close down, there is a huge parade and a 5K, and then to finish it off the NRCA rodeo series. The other interesting thing about Sheridan is a lot of really rich people move here to get away from it all, the owner of Mars Candy lives here, the owner of Purina. So there are some big sponsors for a little home town shin dig. I ran this 5K with my wife 2 years ago and it was what you would expect from a small home town 5K in Wyoming, this year however M&M, Oakly sunglasses, and the same people that put together the Big Horn 100 that was 2 weeks ago sponsor the race. So there were some good prizes and pretty much every High school cross country team from Wyoming was here. I went for an easy 5 miler this morning and ran down and followed the route just to get it figured out, had stomach issues, and leg cramping issues during my morning run and knew today was not going to be pretty. Anyway, I gotta go to the parade. Long story short, I got a 5K PR, because I've never raced a 5K before, bad news I've ran faster 5K's 10 miles into a 18 mile training run before. So not a great day. Oh Well. ******************************************
Now, short story long. This was really Britt's race, she has been training for this the past month. She wanted to do good in front of her old High School friends, when I told her I wasn't feeling very good this morning she told me to just run with her instead. I told her I would go out fast and then if I fell apart I'd wait for her, well, I did fall apart but I didn't wait for her, once you're in race mode you just kind of have to go. I lined up front with about 30 high school kids, the first 500M is down main street slightly downhill and very fast. I told myself to not try and go out with the track kids, but once the gun...s went off I couldn't help but go fast, I looked down and saw that we were at sub 5:00 pace. I thought Oh No! This is bad, I slowed down a little but was still going way to fast, at the 1/2 mile mark I realized I was about ready to loose my banana all over the road and had to slow way down. Thought about waiting for Britt at that point but decided to just try and find my comfort pace, I never did, I felt sick the entire race, at mile 2 the first place girl passed me, I got behind her and ran with her the rest of the way. I thought I didn't want to get chicked but I'd wait until the final sprint down main street to pass her. Well turns out she had a faster kick than me and beat me by about 2 seconds. I don't think she even knew she was competing with anyone :) I finished and turned around and started running back the course to find Britt, I only had to go 500M and she was turning the corner onto main street. I was really surprised to find her that quick. I paced her in, she was looking really strong and having a great time. I split off right before the finish line and some guys came up and tried to push me back onto the road, they said "you're almost there, you can do it" That was my favorite part of the day, I was like 10 feet from the finish and they thought I'd just given up. This is probably one of the funnest, most well organized 5K's ever, 3.1 miles on the dot according to my watch, and about 10,000 people cheering you on coming down the final stretch. Granted, they are all there for the parade not the race but still very fun. Britt was trying for a sub 24:00 and ended up at 23:35, a 4 minute PR for her, so awesome job to her, soon she will be the runner in the family. I really wish I could have been feeling better, but I really wasn't expecting much, too much work, too much travel, and too much fatigue the last few weeks.
| 