Wish I lived here

June 14th brought the HCS Burleigh Manor 5K. I wasn't all that excited about running a 5K after my poor showing in the cross country race a couple of days earlier but it was really the only race on the schedule that worked for me this weekend.

As always it seems with Columbia races, I arrived just moments before the start of the race. In fact, I wasn't able to get my watch/heart monitor working until I was about 100 meters into the race. It was a nice day for non-runners but it was too hot and sunny for me. I was soaked from sweat within just a couple of minutes as we had to climb a bit of a hill before heading out onto the streets of Columbia.

My lack of a warm-up showed as I had to walk only 3 minutes into the race. I topped out at 160beats per minute only 6 minutes into the race. But I was working hard not just because I'm not in great shape...I was also pushing a pretty good pace. There were 2 young kids in front of me that I was trying to keep close. as a result, when I ran I was running about a 9 minute per mile pace. In fact, I ran at 7 minute per mile pace for 3 short sections of the course. Running that fast obviously wears me out so I had to take quite a few recovery walks. But I kept all of them under a minute in length so they didn't destroy my overall time.

I was traling Sarah Moreau and Bruce Breon throughout the 2nd half of the race. I would run hard to catch up to them only to have to slow to a walk when I finally caught them. I hoped to be able to pass them in the final 1/4 mile as I did to the kid the previous week but the course had a long and steep uphill section just before that last 1/4 mile and that sapped the strength from my legs and prevented and sort of reasonable kick. as a result, Sarah beat me by 46 seconds and Bruce beat me by 28 seconds. I finished with a time of 36:37...not a 5K PR for the year but one of my better efforts. My avaerage heart rate was 138 and my max heart rate was 162. My heart rate at the finish was 149, which is a little slow for me...meaning I could have kicked a little further out and maybe shaved off the 7 seconds I needed for a 2009 PR. Such is life.

I saw 3 50+ racers out there. Shout outs to Noah Wood who came in 5th with a time of 18:23; John Way who finished 10th with a time of 19:43; and Kirk Gordon who finished 23rd with a time of 22:17. Good runs for all of them!