Greek Fest 5k – Rewind 16:58

On Saturday morning many of Charlotte's fastest men and women came out to run the Greek Festival 5k. Caitlin Chrisman and Ryan Bender took the top honors for the women and men. Jill Vincent and David Dye were equally fast in winning the Masters awards.

With a fast opening mile, everyone was surging from the start – myself included. The lead runners were sub 5 minutes for the first mile. I passed through the first mile in 5:12. The 2^nd mile on Kingston was slightly up hill and I was starting feel it. I slowed about 5 seconds with a 5:17. As we started circling around the Dilworth loop my lack of speed workouts was starting to show up. BothGreg Isaacs and David Dye were starting to gap me. Greg's 16:12 and David's 16:40 were after awesome closing miles. My last mile was 5:36 and as I was passed by the 3 mile mark, I realized that I could still slip just under 17:00. So between 3 and 3.1 I was digging hard and pumping my arms. Hitting the line, I pressed the button on my stop watch and saw the finish time was 16:58. This was the fastest time this season and for that matter, it is the fastest that I have run in 2 years for a 5k.

Thinking back now I have no idea how I ran this fast. Honestly, I was expecting to run about 17:10 which was more in line with my current training.

As I was looking around in the finish area, I saw both Steve Spada and Mark Cox. They had run excellent times as well. Steve bounced back from his performance at Blue Points with a 17:24. Mark knocked out a quick 17:32

After race, Greg, Steve, David, and I warm down together for a few miles. This gave us a good opportunity to chat. I found out that David was already in the middle of his speed work as he readies himself for a fall marathon. This made me feel a little better since I have only been doing base miles. But also David's 16:40 time left me looking at my training plan. I realized that I needed to step up my game if I am going to stay with him.

During the awards ceremony, I was talking with Chris Jones. I had to admit to him that I didn't even see him pass me. I was concentrating so hard on getting to the finish that I didn't even see either him or Kent Morris push their finishing kicks into over drive to pass me. Talk about being totally focused on the clock.

I also wanted to bring up an interesting topic that was circulating the crowd of runners at the awards ceremony. For the awards, the race organizers were giving out 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place ribbons. In addition, all of the age group winners received a puzzle. Many of us were left just as puzzled by the awards. This is my attempt at some subtle attempt at humor.

One other note, I met a few more people that have been reading my blog. I am still in awe that other people actually find anything that I write interesting enough to read. But best of all, having a blog has done one thing for me. My blog has given me the opportunity to meet a lot of new people so in my mind this makes my efforts worth it.