Tour De Elvis 5k – Race Recap 8.12.11
On what would turn out to be a pretty decent week of training would be capped off by a Friday night race in Albemarle, NC. Yes, after a somewhat disappointing effort at Blue Points, I was back on the roads Friday night to see what this old and tired body would give me.
The Tour De Elvis 5k is in its second year of existence. Not sure whose brain child this was to combine running with an opportunity to celebrate Elvis's Birthday but as far as I can tell most runners liked the idea. And how could anyone celebrate Elvis's Birthday without his favorite foods: PB and Bananas sandwiches, pizza, and Jelly Donuts. Well, it would be minus the Jelly Donuts this year. I think Peter said that he forgot to get them.
The rain has rolled through the area earlier in the evening so the temperatures were down in the mid 70s, but it didn't do a whole lot for the humidity. But what else is new. Summer time in the south, I expect it to be hot and humid.
Similar to last year, the several of the county XC coaches brought their teams out for preseason test. Standing at the start is looking at my self 30 years ago. I had a long and lanky frame and was trying to figure out what this running stuff was all about.
The start has a split in the middle for some trees which is kind of strange for a road race, but maybe even stranger is the fact that all of the XC runners lined up on one side and all of the older runners were on the other side.
The race was delayed a few minutes while they sorted out some issues but soon we were off. The first ½ mile is essentially flat and a lot of XC runners were bunched on the front.
I was running alongside Andrew. Andrew is a former runner from Stanley County and I believe now runs for Wingate.
I digress for a moment here to describe Andrew wardrobe. Andrew was doing his best Elvis impersonation. He had raised up hair, a silver long sleeve costume shirt, and white running tights. He had to be overheating in all of that clothing.
So we hit the first turn and the course starts up hill. Tour De Elvis 5k is much like Blue Points if it were started and finished on Kenilworth.
By the mile a few of the XC were still hanging tough but Andrew was making a move to pull away. I was doing my best impersonation of his shadow and trying to stay with him.
By two miles Andrew opened a couple of seconds' gap on me and try as might, I couldn't get my legs to turn over any faster.
I was using every trick in the book that I knew to keep it close, but Andrew kept looking over his shoulder to gauge the distance.
During the last mile, I made one last big push but nothing doing, Andrew had me by 5 or 6 seconds at the line.
My splits were something like 5:38, 5:33, 5:23, and .46 over 3.16 miles for a nice little 17:23 and 2nd overall. Actually, this was a bit of surprise. Maybe Blue Points was just my way of getting the rust blown away. After all, I hadn't run a 5k in a while and the body and mind both seemed to have a lot of rust built up.
Even more interesting it would be is if I can blow off some more rust in time to run well at the Greek Fest 5k.
In wrapping up this post, I have to give Peter and Dave Freeze major props. The timing and scoring was done old school style with finisher cards by Dave and his team.
And Peter, well, Peter doesn't just put on races; he puts on events. I guess that is why I drive over to do his races.
Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner
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