The Sprint for D.A.R.E.

Okay, so two things made me realize that today I wouldn't quite be "sprint"ing:
1) After my trail run yesterday, my hip was bothering me where I got the rasberry, and my legs were tired. I know wha, wha...
2) My IHT training program, which I had just started last weekend to be ready for the Mt Washington Race in 3 weeks, was quite clear in saying that my performance would decline for the first 7 days and then begin to improve.

I proclaimed to myself that it was okay that I would not get a PR (personal record) here on my home course, and that it was more important that I got my hill and trail workout in the day before and had started my IHT training. That was all a bunch of hooey though! It is never okay deep in recesses of my brain to have a subpar day in a race and I would prove that to myself later.

I was a little more nervous today than usual. I always get that prerace jittery excitement, but it was more today because I knew that as people registered, they would also get my bright yellow and black flyer telling them to look for me on the course with my bright yellow shirt. I got up early, ate my prerace banana about 3 hours ahead of time with my milk and vitamins (yes I have very specific rituals before my races... we runners are VERY superstitious). I put on my racing socks, the shoes that I prefer to race in, shorts & special shirt and headed over to open our church for Sunday services. Seems the day I am scheduled to open the church is always a busy day for our family. When I got back home I quickly grabbed my GPS watch and headed out to run the 1.1 miles from my house to the start as a nice easy pre-race warmup.

The Sprint for DARE is such a great race! It is as much about fellowship as it is about a race, we all know each other here in town and spend the pre-race time catching up and encouraging each other. In a bit of a self-preservation mode, we always tell each other why we won't be able to perform as well as we should too. I fell yesterday and was sore, my friend John has a gimpy achilles, one of my Scouts was sore from his overzealous run on Friday, another friend had a bad back acting up, etc. etc. etc.

Remember when I said that it's NEVER okay to have a bad day? Even when you say it is? Well that became abundantly clear at the starting line. I made sure to work my way up in front of all the people I felt would not be finishing in front of me. I saw my wife and kids and was bouncing up and down waving so they could see me but it was no use, I just looked rather silly and they had no idea where I was in the middle of the mass of people. When the gun went off, I was flying down the road towards the first turn at a comfortable pace and when I reached the first mile marker I had clocked a 6:04 first mile. Fast enough for a PR but way faster than I should have been trying to run. The second mile taught me a lesson, my quads started to fatigue from my mountain run the day before and the mild hill slowed me down considerably, even though I continued to pass other runners. In mile 3 I hit the biggest hill (not very) and continued to pick off other runners as I caught up to one of my Scouts who was slowing on the hill. All he needed to hear was his old Scoutmaster's voice nudging him on from close behind and he sped up amazingly well. I again caught him on the final stretch and that voice from behind was all the motivation he needed to speed up one last time and avoid being beaten by the old guy. I finished 23rd out of about 320 people at a time that was slower than I've run a 5K in years... 20:14 (the official timing says 20:16 but my daughter caught a photo of me crossing the line with the clock in the background as proof that it was 20:14). It truly was a respectable run given that it was not the focal run of my weekend but I would have preferred to at least have broken 20 minutes. Next year I'll break 19 when I am back to training for speed.