LUCKY GREEN 5k - CORRECTION -

The Lucky Green 5k was Saturday morning.  Before I re-cap it, I want to say that Wally and Peg (Arnold) and the other volunteers did a great job hosting the race at the Running Room.  They gave out several gift cards to the overall men, women, and top 3 in each AG.  Jace and I both got $10 gift cards to the Running Room.  They also had plenty of bottled water, St.Patty's decorated cookies, some donut holes and a few other things.  Nice job.

Ok, on to the recap...

Apparently it was going to be a very warm day--in the 50's--so I was banking on 30's-40's by 9am.  I was gonna to wear the FiveFinger Bikila's, but it was only in the upper 20's when we left the house at about 8.  Upper 30's I could handle, but after a warmup of about a mile my toes were not feeling too warm.  I switched to the Saucony A4's with a thin pair of socks--nice and warm.  I haven't done any running intervals yet this year, but have done some tempo runs--longest was 35 minutes of tempo within a run of an hour and 5 min.  I figured I could hold a pace of somewhere between 6 and 6:30 and I'll be happy. 

Jace and I ran around a bit to warm up.  He was not feeling like running--keep in mind they don't run for any distances in school. Gym class 3 times a week and recess is pretty much it.  That being said I suggested to him that he just run his own race, not try to keep up with anyone in particular, and not worry about it. 

So the race starts and the eventual winner, Pete Brueggen, goes out fast.  I got right on his heels, with Andy Shulha was just behind me.  A couple blocks in and I am either really feeling the pace finally hit me, or Brueggen speeds up.  Either way, I didn't want to stay on him.  He gets about 20 yards up on me, then he levels out his pace.  Did he hear me behind him, sped up, then not hearing anyone he calms down?  Not sure.  Anyway, we stayed about 20 yards apart for a while.  I hit mile 1 at 5:34.  What?!?!  I keep going, matching Brueggens speed, but still about 20 yards off him.  We hit mile two--the HRM beeped and showed me 5:41.  WHAT!  Two sub-6 miles.  Ok, so far so good.  I am hurting, but not that bad.  I am entertaining the idea of catching the leader. Yes, that was pure entertainment.  I tried to accelerate, and it felt like I did, but nothing happened.  We get about a 1/3 of a mile into mile 3 and either I slow down, or Brueggen speeds up. Either way, he got about 50 more yards on me.  I look back a couple times and Shulha is a couple blocks back so I am perfectly happy with 2nd overall.  I didn't look at my time even once the whole run--just saw the pace ever time a mile ticked by, but didn't try to do the math.  I stopped the HRM as I crossed the line:  18 min, 0 sec.  I thought it had to be short. Had to.  However, the total distance (GPS) measured at 3.18.   Pace on my watch was 5:40, but when using 3.1 and their time of 18:01, the pace ended up 5:46.  I confirmed with the race director that it was measured at slightly over 3.1 and that was with the corners cut at the shortest angle.  He added that he didn't certify the race, but was going to so he measured it within the acceptable variance. Apparently, you have a few feet of wiggle room +/- of .0125 or something like that.  He was talking fast because he knew what he was talking about and I was just trying to understand what I could.   Anyway, better that the course was slightly long than short as you can count that as a PR.  Previous PR was at the Festival Run 5k with a time of 18:08.  Also, two GPS's will measure slightly different as there is room for error there too.

I was expecting Jace around, maybe under, 25 minutes--his best, mid-summer 2010, June 2010, was 23:27 at Byron 22:42 at the MacAttack, so there was a chance he'd be close to that, but with no running this year it would be tough.  Right around 25, he came in at 25:04 for 19th overall of 99.  He also nabbed 2nd in his AG which was 15 and under -- and he's 10.  Afterwards a woman that either raced or had kids there asked Jace how old he was.  He told her "Ten" and then she added "You wouldn't happen to be a future student at Mayo, would you?"  She was wearing a Mayo Track & Field jacket--a coach.  As she eyed his Komets Wrestling beanie and was trying to figure it out...I said "Kasson."  She said with a smile "I'll be watching for you."  That was sorta nice.