We arrived at the race more than an hour before it started. Don't know why. I did a mile warm up out of sheer boredom and to get out of the sun a little. We started on one of the base runways. I'm sure this wasn't planned, but the start of the race was delayed a few minutes while a plane touched down. Then we were off. I gave my watch to Brendan because he was eying it and I thought it
would be more helpful to him. So I was surprised when my first mile was right around 8. I was more shooting for 8:30 or so, because I just wanted to take it easy. At the first mile, I was right behind Sue, the PE teacher at St. Mal. So I've been thinking all this time that I don't have a competitive drive, but I guess I do. I really didn't want Sue to beat me. I ran with her and a 6th grader for a half mile or so and we were trying to get the girl to keep our pace. She stuck it out, but then fell behind. I kept going with Sue just a little behind me. She asked what my goal was and I said "under 26." So she said she'd keep with me. Right after the girl dropped back, one of my former students, Clark (who also mows my lawn) ran by. He had never done a 5K before and I didn't want to be shamed. So Sue and I picked up the pace. Our second mile was 7:40. Pace on the last 1.1 was 7:25. We passed a lot of people together (but we never did catch Clark) and really raced to the end. Normally I probably would have let her go ahead when she surged, but like I said, I didn't want her to beat me. So I got her in the end, but we both got 1st in our age division. That's part of the reason why I didn't want her to beat me. She's at least 15 years older than me and I didn't want to be shamed again :) So that's not bad for what wasn't going to be a race. And I haven't really been putting a lot of effort into running, either, lately. The rest of the night I sat around in my own stink and enjoyed watching the kids play and seeing the fireworks. I forgot how cool fireworks were. They are so much better when you've got a kid oohing and ahing on your lap. Now it's off to Chicago. I hope I can get a run today.
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