Danville Memorial Day 5K

I ran my 3rd Danville Memorial Day 5K this morning. The race went well for me despite the hot and humid weather. I think I’m finally starting to acclimatize. Melissa was kind enough to let me borrow her girly watch when I discovered I’d left mine at home. I recorded my mile splits, but I tried something different (for me) by not actually looking at them and instead running solely on how I feel. It worked reasonably well.

My #1 fan

The pack started fast and I dropped into 12th place or so after ¼ mile. I moved up to 9th by ½ mile. I moved up to 4th by 1 mile. My split was 5:33, a bit fast. The 2nd mile was mostly into a headwind and I really worked hard to maintain my pace.

Whoa, we’re half way there

Whoa, living on a prayer

Grandma Barb keeps an eye out for Will’s daddy

My next split was 5:55, a bit closer to what I expected. Amazingly, I still felt good at this point. That never happens. I continued to push the pace into the 3rd mile, but just a short distance later we hit a long wide open section with no shade and I absolutely baked in the sun.

The heat hurt me more the last mile than the running did. My 3rd mile split was also 5:55. One runner passed me around the 3 mile mark. I finished in 17:56 (I think, the results seem to be a bit off at the moment), 5th overall, 1st in my age group… identical results to last year.

This sums it up pretty well

Will was enthralled

It was a good race. Many thanks to Melissa, Will, and my parents for coming out to cheer me on. Also, thanks to my dad for taking the race photos.