Happy 4th!

I woke up around 0515 today, let the dog outside, started the coffee pot and got my son out of bed as he decided he was going to wake up early today instead of sleeping until 0630 like he usually does.

I read the newspaper and drank my first cup of coffee as he watched "The Higgly Town Heroes" and "The Wiggles." About halfway through the Wiggles I fed him a bowl of strawberry yogurt and a waffle. After waking up Kim I left the house around 0630 and drove to Jacksonville.

I registered, ran a 1.5 mile warm-up with Rick, Rob and the Bionic Woman and did a bit of light stretching until the gun went off. The Bionic Woman and I ran together, which caused me to ask her if she was going too slow or if I was going too fast, and hit the mile in 6:37.04 which seemed a bit slow to us. We both picked it up and ran a few people down. I held onto her as long as I could but when we hit the two mile mark she was about five seconds up on me. I hit two in 12:56.28 with a 6:19.24 mile split.

With about a half mile to go Joy had built a 22 second lead on me and I was trying to catch three high school boys ahead of me. I caught one but he passed me right back and together we ran down one of the kids but neither of us could catch the last one and we crossed the finish line in 19:53, 19:55 and 19:57. Joy finished in 19:36 winning the women's race.

I ran from the two mile mark to the finish in 7:00.99 and finished ten seconds slower than last year and three seconds slower than at the Scholastic Challenge. Last year I ran 19:47 and was 22 seconds slower than Scholastic. I think that with a bit of speed work and a few long runs I will be in pretty good shape. The fact that I haven't run in my flats in my last two races is heartening.

The Sizzling Mile is in a few weeks and I am hoping to put a scare into the 5:20 barrier.