Steve - 4.1

Unofficial time of 20:45 in pouring rain through puddles. Mustache pics. now live!

----------

So it was my first 5k race in several months. Naturally, when I woke up the morning of the race it was pouring rain. A rare occurrence for L.A. My wife made a meek effort to persuade me to not do the race, but we had already paid in advance and I was determined to run on this day. I figured there was a chance it wouldn't be raining at the USC campus, which is about 15 miles from my house. Of course, when we arrived there on campus it was raining just as hard. Undeterred, after parking, we jogged over the pre-reg tent as everyone around merely walked in the rain. The 25 minutes or so before the race pretty much sucked as I was trying to do some drills and strides while most people huddled in the areas that were covered. Finally about 2 minutes before the race was supposed to start, people started assembling at the start. By this time I was completely soaked. For some unknown reason they kept us standing there for another 10 minutes or so for various speeches and of course an extremely slow rendition of the national anthem in which I refused to take my hat off. Call me a traitor to my county, I don't care.

At last the race started. We started right by the Tommy Trojan statue. . We ran along the sidewalk through campus for most of the first mile, twisting and turning through puddles gallore. I really had no idea what my pace was in the first mile during it. I was mostly just trying to not step directly into puddles without slowing down too much. The first split was 6:37 and there was probably about 15 people ahead of me. I actually felt surprisingly good as we finally made our way onto the streets. However the same problem with puddles exists. As some of may know, L.A.'s street system is not designed to drain water so there tends to be puddles everywhere. It's always a disaster when there is persistent rain. I still didn't have a good feeling for my pace during the second mile. I passed a few people, which doesn't mean much cuz people always go out too fast in the first mile. I hit the second mile at 6:43, a slight drop off, but still pretty good. Now within striking distance, I had to remind myself not to let down. I picked off a few runners, although a few different runners blew past me. The final mile consisted of a bunch of dizzying turns on the walkway around the campus, not exactly optimal for speed, especially considering the puddles everywhere. At last, I hit the 3rd mile at 6:48 and picked it up slightly to close the final .1 in a decent :37 for a final unofficial time of 20:45. I was pretty happy to be under 21. I really had no idea what I would be capable of after averaging about 10-12 miles the last 5 weeks or so. Oh also, I grew a mustache during the first week of November, partially for "Movember" and partially as a half-ass costume to work for Halloween. I wore a Google T-Shirt and I had a mustache. So my costume was a "douche", since I work for a quasi-competitor to Google.

Splits (6:37, 6:43, 6:48, :37)