NOTE: Photo was added 1-2-11.

Me after the New Year’s River Run 5K.

It was raining with temps in the mid-50s when I arrived at the New Year’s Day River Run 5K today. There were several members of the Buckeye Striders at the race: Steve and Sharon, Jack, Catherine, Laura, Cheryl and her husband John.

The race was not chip timed, still I felt funny about moving any closer to the front of the pack. I know starting back will affect my official finish time, but I was not expecting to win any awards.

We were pretty fortunate. While we were waiting for the race to start, the rain became a light drizzle and it had stopped entirely by the time the race started. The course was an out and back on the bike trail along the Olentangy River downtown.

I have been training for speed on a treadmill over the last week and wanted to see how fast I could go. Though I started out with some of my faster friends, they left me in the dust pretty early. (Or should I say, they left me in goose droppings.) I did the first mile in 13:24. There was a runner behind me shuffling her feet in a really annoying way, so I tried to pick up the pace and move away from her. There was a tall woman running ahead of me I was also trying to catch. The second mile was 13:18! Woo hoo! I passed the runner and had my sights on catching Cheryl, who was not too far ahead of me. The last 1.1 miles was in 14:34, which is about a 13:14 mile! By my watch I finished in 41:16! Added 1-2: I believe 13:14 is my fastest mile ever and 41:16 my fastest 5K! (According to our watches, I finished just 1 sec behind Cheryl.)

In the last leg of the race, the tall runner passed me back and I could not catch her again. Though I got much closer to Cheryl, I couldn’t catch her either. On the good side, I did pass a couple more runners and I was pushing pretty hard and feeling strong despite a late night last night.

There was pizza at the end of the race and plenty of water (though no water on the course). After standing around for a little bit, we hurried to our cars to avoid the heavy rain that came back.

For only a $20 race fee, I was happy with this race. The cotton T-shirts are nice and sometimes I prefer a nice cotton shirt as opposed to a cheap technical shirt. The course was out and back, which was OK with the number of people in this event, but if it gets much bigger, it would not work on this bike trail. The goose droppings everywhere were annoying, but the race directors cannot control that. Because of the rain, there were a few huge puddles on the course and some muddy spots. Still, rain on January 1 is much better than snow.

Overall, not a bad 5K.
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Truth in blogging here: I did stay out way too late last night, drank too much coffee before heading home and ended up not able to sleep once I got to bed. I woke up feeling totally tired and was not expecting to do as well as I did. Imagine if I had slept well! Photos to come!

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