Lunge Forward 5k Recap

It took a few days for me to gather my thoughts about the Lunge Forward 5k this past weekend. No, there wasn’t anything drastic that happened. No, it is just a busy, busy, busy time for me.

So, after deciding on a race to blow some dust out of my tail pipes, I signed for the Lunge Forward 5k. There were a number of races around Charlotte this past weekend, but I choose this one because we are having our CRC picnic at the Park Road Park. Having never been to this particular park in Charlotte, checking it out seemed like a good idea.

The Lunge Forward team had a pretty nice little setup. We would start on of the road exiting the park and end the race in one of the park parking lots. Park Rd. rolls pretty good, but nothing like the neighborhoods. Steep up hills and steep down hills left my quads with more than enough burning.

At one point, I felt like leaning forward just a bit more and touching my hand to the road.

The escorting police car dropped off when I turned back on to Park Rd for the return trip to the park. Her parting instructions were to stay in the left lane. Well, I had to right half of the left lane since there were still runners heading out for their first mile of the course.

Nearing the end of these runners, there was a trailing police cruiser. Then, coming up the road was a semi truck. At first thought, I wondered if I should bale to the side walk. In a "me" vs. the semi, 10 out of 10 times, I would loose.

But before I did so, the police officer literally jumped out of his car and went to flag the semi driver down.

Well, at least now the semi was stopped.

Once past it, I had a clean run back to the park and the win. My time was a sluggish 18:34.

 I would have liked it to have been faster, but getting older means I have a lot more rust to get off.

Now, it is on to China Groove 5k in a few weeks. If luck is on my side, I might slip under 18 minutes.

 

  The Cool Down Runner