GT350H

Exercise: Met Ronnie N. at 5:45 in Madison to go to the Waynesboro, TN "Relay for Life" 5K. According to Google it was supposed to be 82 miles from my house, but actually our route made it a little over 90 miles. We got there at about 7:30 for the 8AM start. I did a 0.98 mile warmup and was already drenched - humidity was stifling. At the start I got hemmed in by a number of runners who should not have been near the front, including a mother/daughter combo who were completely oblivious to their surroundings. Having to slow down and weave left and right a few times in the first ~200 yards I finally found a gap and broke through. My arch nemesis in the Shoals area, Stacy LeMay, was once again at the front, having started out extremely fast as is usually the case. He was closely followed by a younger Shoals TRAC team runner, Alex Hazy (20 yrs old) who is training for a marathon. At around the 1/2 mile mark, I noticed that they were not paying any attention to the apexes of the course and were running in the middle of the road. On the curvy first section, cutting the apexes would greatly decrease distances, so that's what I did. Just past the 1/2 mile mark I caught them and took a little lead (in the only shady part of the whole course).

As we exited the residential area and headed out on the the main highway (TN 64) we had to make a sharp uphill (the only real one on the course) and then a right hand turn onto the cone lined road. At this point I could catch a glimpse of those behind and saw I had maybe a 20 yard lead on Stacy, with Alex fading fast. The 1 mile mark was hit at 6:01, which is really where I needed to be, so maybe the slow start was a blessing in disguise! At the halfway point we entered a business parking lot for the turn around which, thankfully, was not just one sharp cone, but a gradual left hander back onto HWY 64. I could not see Stacy at this point so I knew he was kind of close and in the parking lot as I entered back onto the main road. I met Ronnie as I was heading back, barely able to grunt a "CB" as I went by. Mile two was 6:18, which on this hot day, kind of let me know that a sub 19:00 was not in the books today. It was nice meeting all the other runners on the way back yelling "way to go" as I went by.

My next opportunity to check out the competition was when I went back down the steep hill back into the residential area. I saw Stacy, a little farther back than earlier, but still within striking distance. Of course, at this point, about 2.5 miles into the race there was no way I was gonna let him pass me... I hit the 3 mile mark in 6:23 and could see the finish line clock in the distance. I tried to pick it up at this point, just to make sure no one came close. I did the last 0.1 in 0:36, finishing in 19:21. First Overall (out of 173 total finishers). Stacy was 28 seconds back in 2nd, Ronnie finished 4th in 21:06. 6 of the top 10 finishers were in my age group (45-49).
Results are here.

Sunday: My longest training run of the year, 13 miles. Met Joey B. and Linda S. at the Cotton Row Run starting line. Did the first 3.5 miles of the CRR course, but instead of going immediately down Bankhead Parkway, we ran up it, through the barricades to the Ranger Station. There we filled our water jugs, then headed back down Bankhead, hit the CRR course again back to the Von Braun Center, and did a little extra in the VBC parking lot to get to an even 13. Much more bearable conditions starting at 5:45 AM as opposed to the 8:30 AM start last week. Made a conscious effort to try to push the last mile while I was really tired to prepare for stronger end of race finishes.

Splits:
1: 8:34
2: 7:53
3: 7:53
4: 11:13
5: 8:41
6: 10:04
7: 9:00
8: 7:56
9: 7:58
10: 7:48
11: 7:52
12: 7:36
13: 7:06

Total mileage for the week: 18.14

Total mileage for the month : 18.14