This is the race that everyone told me I shouldn’t do. I haven’t been able to run since this past weekend - a combination of a mild sore back and just, quite frankly, a lack of time. I met up with Thon and Mike for a pasta dinner earlier this evening, where they both told me that they weren’t doing the race. It was forecast to be 97 degrees and humid at sunset, when the race started. And, because of an upcoming trip to Dallas, I was going to run an 18 miler on Friday morning.

I was volunteering anyway, so I went to the race to help them set everything up. When I was there I saw Gilbert who said, “What are you doing here!? You should not be racing!” I told him that I was going to run nice and easy, and he seemed okay with that, but skeptical. Sheesh… Also, I knew that I could dehydrate myself during the run which wouldn’t be a big deal over the 5K, but would make tomorrow’s 18 miles a bit nasty.

So I ended up running it anyway. I mean, what the heck. I promised myself that I was not going to run too hard, and I think that I actually kept my promise pretty well. I lined up about 20 feet back from the start, and chatted somewhat with Corey until the gun went off. David and Muna were a couple of seconds ahead of me; I ran with Muna for a little but she pulled away (on her way to a 45 second PR!).

After the first few exciting meters I settled down into a comfortable pace. For the first mile I was probably doing 90% of my running at a “3/3″ breathing pattern - three footfalls for each breath in, and each breath out - down to a 3/2 at times. Even so, I clocked a 7:07 first mile which was way too fast. I backed off a bit, but my breathing stayed constant, which probably means that I was running too hard (but appropriately or even slowly for a normal 5K). I got to cheer for lots of people I recognized, and ran with Lilliana for a while too, which was good.

By the two mile marker my resolve to run easy was being challenged, since people around me were beginning to pick it up and I was being passed. The good news is that I was feeling really comfortable, running closer to my 10K pace I think. After the turnaround I was pleasantly surprised as to just how many people there were behind me. That mile took a bit longer than the first, at more like 7:30 if I remember the clock correctly. It wasn’t that long ago that I was hungering to break an 8:00 pace for the 5K, so its somewhat nice in retrospect that I backed off to that 7:30!

Once we made the left hand turn next to Austin High I let myself speed up a bit. I wasn’t going full out, but I was getting a little tired of being passed by other racers and, hey, I had some strength left. Gilbert saw me with about 500M to go, and he cheered me on. I picked off quite a few people who had passed me in the previous mile, which felt good; then in the last 100M I sped things up and had a great finishing kick across the line.

My final time was 22:57 (7:19 pace), which means that the last 1.11 took me about 8:17 for a 7:27 pace, a little slower than I’d thought I was doing given that I did pick it up a bit at the end; I guess I slowed down from 2-2.5 more than I realized. Not my best 5K, but for a 97 degree event when I was trying to take it easy, I’ll take sub-23 any day. Not too shabby! Afterwards, Gilbert said that I looked really strong when he saw me at the end. I should have done, really, since I was feeling great and relaxed at the time.

For the second year this was a very well put-together race. Other fond memories - Maudie’s queso and guacamole at the after-party. Free toe socks, for whatever reason. Thinking that someone I was running behind during mile one reminded me of Thon (he was wearing shorts and an open linen shirt). Thinking that they didn’t remind me of him nearly as much when I passed him, huffing and puffing, during mile two (the odds of me passing Thon in a race any time soon are slim, to put it mildly). The realization that, once I was done (at almost 9:00) I had about eight hours to recover before running eighteen miles. The decision not to partake of the free margaritas was good, if aggravating, as was forcing down as much cold water as I could. Still, this wasn’t my key race for the season…

Good times.

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