GT350H

Monday, September 1, 2008

3rd race in 48 hours

Exercise: Ran another 5K this AM in Fairview, AL, where my mother graduated from high school. Cool temps, but still very humid. Around 45 runners total. Saw one younger runner who has beaten me at races before and Scott Butler who is a high 19 minute 5Ker. At the start, 2 young runners from Fairview's track team took off and opened up an early 50 yard lead. I wasn't really worried about them, as I was more worried about Scott and the other 20 something runner (Can't remember his name) who'd beaten me before. At about the 0.8 mile mark I finally passed the two young tracksters. The one mile marker on this course has always been a little short - I hit it at 5:42. Just passed this marker we make a sharp, acute angle onto another road heading back into town where I caught a glance behind me, seeing the quickest of the two tracksters and Scott about 50 yards back. A little bit of relief here in the fact that they weren't any closer. Between the 1.25 mile mark and the 2.5 mile mark we encounter the two biggest hills on the course, with the two mile mark at the bottom of the last big hill. I hit the 2 mile mark in 12:13, still right on pace for a 19:00 5k. Another 100 yards and we made another sharp left turn heading into the business district - I got another glance and saw I had stretched my lead a little more, only seeing Scott now.
At this point I really started feeling the effects of the 10K and 5K I ran on Monte Sano only 48 hours earlier. I knew I only needed to keep Scott behind me for an overall win, so I slowed some (as I seem to always do in the 3rd mile of 5K races these days). Through the business district and back to the high school where we finished with 3/4 lap around the track, I crossed the line in 19:30. Kind of an embarrassing time for an overall win (and since I'd ran 18:57 and 18:52 here the last two years). But, an overall win is not something I'll turn down... Scott Butler finished 2nd in 20:14 (he said he was disappointed as well).