Luke - 8

Turkey Stuffer 5k, 15:59 (6th place)

It had been raining for about a week before Thanksgiving, with wind here and there, but for the race it was clear and still for about six hours before going back to usual. Zack and I warmed up about 2½ miles and I felt pretty good, or at least nothing felt bad. It seemed like everywhere I looked there were a lot of fast people, and I talked to Josh Gordon before the start and he predicted at least 5 people would go sub-15. I think it being the 30th running of the race got a few more people than usual out there. They had to start the race about ten minutes late because there was still a line of people picking up their race numbers at 8:30 (listed start time). Zack and I lined up with a bunch of people we knew, including Josh and Jeff, who I was hoping to run with (and maybe beat). At the gun it was a pretty crowded start and I was probably in 25th at best at 300m. Jeff had gone out very fast, probably at the back of the lead group, and Josh was in front of me a little ways also. It thinned out somewhat by the time we made the first turn, about a half-mile in, and I was picking people off fairly constantly. Josh was also picking people off, and was probably 30m in front of me at about 6 minutes into the race. There were no mile markers this year, which is weird since they have always had them at this race in the past, and at almost every race in general. Kinda threw me off not knowing at all how fast I was going. I just kept trying to pick people off, and I was pretty successful at that. Not counting the first 50m, no one passed me the entire race. I kept catching up to the next guy in front of me, running with him for a second sometimes, and then passing him with a burst, and none of them ever came back to me. The only guy I wasn't catching was Josh. At about a half a mile to go we came out of the neighborhoods and onto a more major road, and stayed on that road until about 300m to go, where we turned into a parking lot and ran to the finish. At the turn onto the main road, there was one guy right in front of me, another guy about 25m in front of me, Josh just in front of him, and Jeff about 25m in front of Josh. I dropped the first guy right away and really tried to push to catch Josh. At the turn-in to the parking lot it took me about 10m to catch the random guy and I blew past him pretty easily (Steve--he had a CMS jersey on, so you'll be happy to know I beat the bastard). Josh was pushing hard to catch Jeff, so I was having a tough time gaining anything on him. At the finish it ended up being Jeff two seconds in front of Josh who was three seconds in front of me. I think if Jeff hadn't been there as a target for Josh I might've had a chance at catching him. Also I think if the race were a quarter-mile longer the order of the three of us would have been reversed.

I was surprised to learn that I'd gotten sixth--when I finished I figured I was somewhere around 13th, but I guess I'd picked off a lot of people. The race wasn't as fast as we expected--the winner was at 15:27. If I'd gotten my goal of 15:29 I would have been right up there...I think not having mile markers messed me (and a lot of other people) up. The cold might have had something to do with it, even though it was relatively warm (41º). Also I think I run a lot better in the evening. Kinda disappointed I didn't PR...I didn't feel like I was weak in any one specific area, there was just nothing really great about my race.

Cooled down for a while with a handful of other people, for what I'm gonna call 2.4 miles, and then Zack and I left...we didn't stick around for awards; I'm pretty sure I would have gotten a dinky medal for being second in my age group, but that's about it. We were much more interested in heading out to get Thanksgiving dinner!