Luke - 7

I wanted to do a workout today and had planned on joining the Flyers, but they were doing a hill workout instead of intervals and I do enough hills on my own, so I instead headed out to Dorris Ranch where there was a small 5k put on by the Oregon Track Club.  They do an all-comers type race on the second Thursday evening of each month and I knew Jeff was going to be running it since I'd run with him a few times over the past couple weeks.  I saw him about 5 minutes into my warmup and ran with him for a bit, then a bit later we saw Thomas, who was just going to be doing like 6:30 pace for it, and ran with him for a bit too.  Our other friend George was also coming and neither Jeff nor I are 100% right now so we figured he'd win it.

The start was a nice big downhill that went past the finish line and into the woods.  The course was partly on gravelly paths and partly through the hazelnut orchards.  There were lots of turns and the flour put down to mark the course was a bit thin, but it was infinitely-better marked than the last 5k.  Also for the first half of the race we were led by a bike.  George and Jeff took it out pretty fast and I hung close behind and sometimes caught up to them.  I was breathing pretty heavy for the first mile and it seemed very fast.  We came through at 5:10, which seemed about right with the downhill start and the numerous sharp turns.  A couple minutes later I took the lead with Jeff, and I pulled ahead slightly and he said, "Good job Luke." That's something you say when the guy you're running with is gonna take off, so I responded "I'm not going anywhere."  He and I shared the lead for the next little while with George close behind.  The bike pulled off as we went out a long straight path for an out-and-back.  The 2-mile point was at the turnaround and we were at 5:30, slow only because of turns and tough footing.  Jeff and I missed the turn after the out-and-back but the guy on the bike happened to be going past us at that exact moment and pointed us in the right direction.  Pretty lucky.  I had noticed that if I ever dropped back I was able to catch back up with a little effort, and figured that meant I should be able to give that sort of effort more continuously and build a lead.  I did that most of the third mile and once I'd put a few seconds on Jeff I was running scared, which I think I do pretty well.  I was expecting Jeff or George to come flying by me at any moment.  I came through mile 3 in 5:26, and ran the last (uphill) tenth of a mile hard to be sure to finish first.  My time was 16:40; Jeff came in 5 seconds later and we chastised each other for running too hard.  I really hurt, and had for most of the race.  I keep making myself forget how much a 5k hurts.

For the win I got a $25 gift certificate to Track Town Pizza.  As I was cooling down the Race Director called me over and asked what size I was and then gave me a t-shirt, and I was a bit worried that was the prize and I wasn't getting my pizza...but then a little later they called out the names of the winners and gave us our coupons.  George, Jeff, Thomas and I went straight from the race to the pizza and shared a delicious large "Decathlon" pizza and a couple pitchers of beer.  As we were eating the female winner also came in, with all her siblings who were in town for a wedding.  Runners love pizza.

It was a real fun time!  Glad I happened to go out there.