Race #2 in Deca-turd

I completed my second race here in sweet smelling Decatur this morning. We moved here March 27 and I ran a 5K in 20:43 a week later. I was still very sore from the move and didn't perform as well as I thought I could.

I've been putting in about 15-20 miles a week on 3-4 days of running since we moved here. I'm trying to be careful as Decatur is much more hilly than Chatham was and my legs are not used to it. I thought I was trying to get shin splints but a new pair of shoes has alleviated that.

I have not done any speedwork (tempo or track) since sometime in late Feb, early March and I have not run longer than 6 miles since about that time either. I am basically trying to say that I don't really have much going on in the way of race preparedness.

Despite all the above-mentioned disadvantages I felt that a time in the neighborhood of 35:00 would be pretty good. I thought that if the course was reasonably flat and the weather cooperated I could go under 35:00.

The temps this morning were in the 50s, which is perfect, but the wind was blowing about 15 mph with some pretty heady gusts out of the WNW. Unfortunately for me, this race was an out-and-back that headed pretty steadily in that direction.

I started at the front of the pack and after the gun set off I settled into a pretty relaxed pace that I hoped was in the 7:00-7:10 range and hung out in 6th place until a guy in a Cubs hat passed me at about the 4:00 mark. I was content to stay behind him until I hit the mile in 7:19.94 after which I dropped him like the good Cardinals fan I am.

After dropping my blue-hatted friend I found myself all by my lonesome in 5th place approximately 45 seconds behind a pack of 3 guys and 10 to 15 seconds, and extending, on Cub's man.

In a cruel twist of fate we ran over I-72 at which point I was going uphill and into the wind. I wound around on a side road to the turnaround which I hit in 18:15.21 running from the mile mark in 10:55.27. I noticed that after the turnaround the group ahead of me had strung out and it looked like Tailgate Charlie was coming back to me. I relaxed my form, shortened my stride and focused on his orange back. As we left the side road to head back over I-72 he was 28 seconds ahead of me and upon reaching the other side he was only 18 seconds ahead.

I passed the 4 mile mark in 29:05.49 running from the turnaround in 10:50.28 and was only about 8 seconds back. I had picked a house that marked the half mile left point and started an extended kick, passed the guy to move into 4th place and crossed the finish line in a somewhat disappointed 36:01.84 and covering the last mile in 6:56.35.

I was only disappointed until looking at my splits, such as they were, and noticing that I had run negative splits. I was also less disappointed when three people with Garmins commented that the course was between 5.08 and 5.15 miles which makes it about 30 to 50 seconds long. All of a sudden my 36:01 was looking more like a 35:11 or a 35:31 and more in the range I thought myself capable of. The wind also played a factor in that it was in my face most of the first half and blowing me sideways most of the second half.

I did win my age group and brought home a very nice blue coffee cup with the race logo on it.

I'm hoping to run at least one race a month until the end of the year, though I'll see how that works out. I'm going to work on getting my mileage up to the mid-20s with an 8-10 mile long run and I'll start adding some speedwork so I can crank out a respectable time at the PPR in September. I doubt I'll break 19:00 this year but I think sub-19:30 is possible with all the demands on my time.