Racing

Hadn't raced since November 22nd. Haven't done much "speedwork", but I have tried to run some faster runs in the past few weeks. Decided to run the Burlington Education Foundation's Exercise for Education 5k. A good friend lives in the middle of the course and if he can get his old triple-jumper body around it, I might as well, too.

Started with a warm-up run with one daughter in the Family Fun Run. A half-mile run, that she didn't walk even a step. She complained some, but did better than she has ever done in a race.

The 5k started like most typical small local races, a bunch of young boys sprinting from the line, only to get in the way a minute or two later as they slow to a walk. By a half-mile in, I had moved up to 8th place. The 1st place runner was decided in the 1st quarter-mile, then two sets of two runners out of reach, and finally, a line of three, each separated by about 10-15 yards. During the quarter mile climb to the mile mark, I slowly gained on 7th place and with a tiny push over the top, moved ahead of him to begin the downhill second mile. 1st mile 6:27

I don't run downhills very well and over the next half mile, I couldn't gain any ground on 6th place. I could tell I was putting space on the 8th place, based on cars trying to cross the course and occasional spectators. When the course flattened, I started to close the gap a little, but couldn't seem to make a lot of progress. I felt I was still running hard, so it wasn't a big concern about what place I finished. As we approached the water stop and two mile mark, 6th place ran out of gas. Suddenly, the gap was gone and we ran side by side for the next 100m or so. I commented that the course looked like it was going back uphill and he commented that I was running a nice race. I encouraged him to join me in trying to get to 5th place as he was "coming back to us" (in my dreams). When he replied that it was too far, I knew I was probably going to running alone for the rest of the race. 2nd mile 6:08 (I think it was short)

Mile three had a few ups and downs and multiple turns. This made it impossible to see 5th place. I ran hard and was happy to look back at about mile three and see that 7th place was back far enough that no sprint was going to catch me. When I could see the clock, I realized that a sub 20:00 was easily in reach. As my last race back in November was a fast course, I knew beating my 19:50 from then would be a stretch. I crossed the line in 19:57. 6th place overall, 1st in the 40-44 age group. 2nd in the 40-49.

After I finished, I reset my watch and started it at the 21:00 mark and headed out to meet my other daughter and wife who were running. After a few minutes through the twists, the bright red face of my 8 year old came down the hill. My wife told me that she hadn't stopped to walk at all, other than when drinking water back at the 2nd mile. We ran together for the last half-mile and once I saw that she wasn't going to stop, I did the quick math to realize that she would be under 30 minutes. Her previous best for a 5k was about 34 minutes. She finished in 29:28, 1st in the 10 & under age group (once they fixed her gender in the results). I'm proud to say that she does this with no training. They both do enough other activities (piano, soccer, softball), that I don't worry about them not being active and I'd prefer to not push her to the sport at too young an age. Seeing their parents run and race on a regular basis should be enough to encourage them to try. When they show interest, I'm there to help it along.

A great day on the roads.