Luke - 9

~3mi w/u, ~5.12mi @ 27:10, ~.88mi c/d.

Bridgeway Run For Autism 8k, 1st place.

Course was long, so I didn't get an accurate time like I wanted for Bloomsday seeding. Did get $100 though, so that's cool I guess.

At the start line I didn't see anyone who I figured would be very fast. There was a guy in a green jersey (Oregon Running Club?) who looked kinda fit but he was wearing headphones, so I figured he wouldn't be doing anything amazing. Also a guy in a Hackers jersey, which is a running club in the area for spunky older guys.

At the gun (well cowbell actually) I took off in first of course, and after 200m could hear someone right behind me. I figured it was the guy in green but couldn't really see. I held him off, and then at about the one mile mark there was a turnoff for the 5k, and he took it and I realized it was actually the Hackers guy. From then on I was alone. I didn't actually see the 1-mile marker so no split for that. Tried to really push it but there was absolutely no one anywhere near me so it was tough. Had to assume I was going the right way, the chalk arrows were all kind of faint because it had rained a bit recently. 10:38 at the 2-mile split, which was about 10 seconds off where I would have ideally liked to be. Tried to speed up but the third mile was full of tiny hills, just rolling up and down and up and down. There were quarter-mile markers on the path and I was checking my times for them and couldn't get under 80. The split was 5:22. Pretty soon after that the 8k course rejoined the 5k course. First group I came up on that was taking up the whole path I said "on your left" or something and they got out of the way in time. Then I was mostly dodging pairs of people for a while, then came up on another group taking up the whole path and tried to say something but it got caught in my throat and came out as a quiet "arglbargl!" They didn't hear me so I just had to squeeze through. Dodged people the rest of the race pretty much, but I was able to speed up on the fourth mile to a 5:15, which put me at 21:16, so I figured a fast last .96 would get me to 26:15, or 26:10 if I was really able to do something. I'm pretty sure I sped up fairly well, but as I was coming up to the finish the clock was in the low 27:s and I was confused. I hit my watch at the finish and it agreed, 27:10, last split of 5:54. So almost a minute off where I expected to be. I talked to a few of the race official people but I don't think they really cared so I dropped it (they were part of the charity group, not actual race organizers).

After the race I was planning on running home as my cool down, but my feet were really hurting, especially my right one...lately my old plantar fasciitis came back but I'd been stretching it every morning and it seemed like it was on its way out...I guess the race really aggravated it because I could barely walk and was in a lot of pain by the time I got home.

At home I looked at the course map on the website and it was clearly just roughly done, and the start and finish weren't even in the same places as they were on the course. I made a map of my own and it confirmed the course to be about .15mi long (45-50 seconds at my pace). I tried Emailing the website guy to see if he could put a little note in the results saying the course was long, so I could have something slightly official to show the Bloomsday seeding guy, but he Emailed me back with "The course was accurate when we measured it, it's the charity's fault" ...I guess he didn't really realize what I was saying and thought I was blaming him or something...he probably gets complaints like that all the time.

So anyway I guess I'll get second seeding this year, and will have to wait on elite seeding until next year.