Race4Time @ Joe's Crab Shack

The family decided to join me for the 5k race this morning, although sans son #1 because he's now officially got the teenager attitude and it just isn't cool to wake up early and be seen with the P's at a race. That makes all my years of effort being a 'good' parent seem so satisfying!

Since we were expecting about 20 of my Pike Creek run club members to be here, we had all decided on a Mardi Gras Beach Party theme. It was either that or everyone go in drag... which I just hate wearing a wig & makeup when I'm trying to run fast. (insert drum rimshot: bum-bum-crash)(insert laugh track: hardy har har). For this reason I ran the race in a Hawaiian shirt with a couple of lei's around my neck & a large silly balloon hat. Might have slowed me down a bit, but not more than a few seconds. I've never run with any type of costume, it was fun! Not sure if or when I'll do it again, but sometimes you just have to go for it.

As to the race, started well back from the front. Good thing too becuase there's a lot of fast people at this race. The age group 1st place is a nice gift certificate to the local running shoe store. 2nd & 3rd get small GC too. Took it out sensibly & under control. I could see a few runners ahead of me that I hoped to be finishing with. But I didn't push the pace early and figured I would catch them later. This course is totally flat. Temp was around 72-75 or so and half sun/half clouds. First mile in 6:41 which seemed great because I was feeling good. The RD was at the 1mm taking photo's but he seemed to be having an camera issue so didn't get me. I really wanted a pic of me running in my zany costume but it didn't happen. other race pics here. As the second mile came back around to the riverwalk path I could tell that I was losing ground to everyone (Theresa, Jack, Ivan plus unk's) in front of me except Ray. This is where the typical 5k discomfort began to set in. That fact tells me that I should've/could've gone out faster in the first mile. Reach 2mm in 6:50 (13:31) which seemed fine; Ray was about 10-15 seconds in front of me.

The 3rd mile I felt like I was running my race, slowing pulling up towards Ray. I could see Jack was battling someone from his own a.g. and they were pulling farther away from me (he would finish 36 secs ahead). Was I didn't figure is that Ray was actually slowing because my split was 7:01 (20:32). When I saw that I was over 7 mins I knew that i wasn't working hard enough. The 3mm was just where I was catching up with Ray. i called over to him "c'mon - finishing kick" and then he proceeded to out sprint me to the line. Final .1 in :39 - which is good kick... again indicating that I should've worked harder earlier. 21:11 is not bad. 20 sec improvement from last weekend, but still not this year's best time. And about one full minute slower than last year's times.

This coming week I plan to take it a bit easy, cycle down then build a big week the one after. June has been a nice transition from post-marathon recovery into summer speed. A few more weeks of speed and then fall marathon training begins! Tomorrow will be a gentle trail run done solo & early morning. Looking forward to that.