Race:Rowan Oak 5k
Location: Oxford, MS
Date:8/5/2011
Time/Temp: 7:00 pm / 78° – 89%rh
Distance: 5k
Official Time: 27:24 chip timed (gun)
Pace: 8:50/mi
Place info
Overall:
Age Group: 10 out of 12
Rowan Oak 2011 Final Results – Official
Nah, just kidding with ya. No real excuses here, but I’m using the metaphor for laying out how I felt about the race.
I ran in the Rowan Oak 5k on Friday Night. It’s part of the Oxford Endurance Weekend. About a month ago; I had maybe dreamed about possibly doing the triathlon as part of the event, that was before I realized that swimming was a lot harder than I thought, and that I was actually already inside of my training plan for the St. Jude Marathon.
Now, Excuse #1, this race really didn’t jive well with my training plan. I basically added it on as cross training. I ran my 4mi at a tempo pace the morning before the race. Friday was set to be a Cross Training/Rest day depending upon how I felt. It should have probably been an easy bike ride type of day or something, but I went on with running in the race. I skipped a 3 mile EZ run on Saturday but still ran a 6mi LSR on Sunday.
Excuse #2, unlike most of the 5k’s and my regular running times, the 5k was a night race. Scheduled for 7pm Friday night rather than early Saturday morning. Hardly ever do I run afternoons or evenings.
Lastly, it wasn’t as hot as it has been, but it was freaking humid. It rained fairly hard in Oxford for a couple of hours and stopped about an hour before the race. I’d rather it just kept raining because that made the air extremely muggy for sure. And since it was overcast, sun didn’t really have a chance of burning off any of that water.
All that said, I’ve also been running slower lately anyway. My legs have felt tired, I need a couple of rest days and easy days. I’m taking a cutback week this week. Besides my LSR on Saturday, I’ll likely only do a few easy miles on Tuesday and Thursday, and will likely not do anything as far as cross training goes for the week. That should help freshen me up for some of the longer runs that are coming on the schedule over the next couple of weeks.
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As far as the race goes, I started out fairly well, felt comfortable, pushed myself a little harder after about 1mi. About the 2 mi mark I pushed myself even harder, but it also ended up being the hilliest portion of the course, so at about 2.5 mi I sorta felt like I wanted to puke. Running hard, plus running in the afternoon after you’ve eaten probably attributed to that a little, most all my other hard runs have always been in the morning on essentially an empty stomach.
So slowed down and the puke feeling went away, but I was still fast enough to be passing a few people, and at about the last half mile, I went steady toward the finish line, as I was passing some other dude he seemed not to like that and he waved at me like he wanted to race to the end, and headed out on a dead sprint,,, stupidly, I sprinted with him, but I just don’t have the stamina to sprint a half a mile, I hung with him as long as I could but I ended up dropping back pretty hard around the last corner and finished about 10 seconds behind him. You can actually see him in the neon green shirt coming over the line at about 24:10 mark of this video, I’m just after him in the blue at about 24:20 mark of the video. I just look spent coming over… 
Despite being 30 seconds or so slower than my last race, and a full minute slower than my PR, I still felt okay with it, I wasn’t really rested like I should be for this one, and being an afternoon race meant it felt harder for me to run, as I had already been working throughout the day. I didn’t take my phone, so I have no pictures other than the video provided by the race.
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On a related note, I went to watch part of the triathlon the next morning. It was fun to watch, I wish I had done it. I don’t think I would have been too out of place. I might try one of those in the spring, or this exact race next year.
Also, It was tax free weekend in Tennessee, so I went up to Breakaway Running in Memphis to pick up what will probably be my St. Jude Marathon shoes, as I should be just about breaking in the pair I bought on Saturday about three weeks or so before the race. I wanted Saucony Triumphs like I have been running in, but they cost $130 and didn’t qualify for the tax break. After trying several other pairs of Neutral Running shoes, I settled on a pair of Asics Gel Nimbus 13s. They felt good, really, really light, like surprisingly light. I have one pair of new Triumph’s on my pile still, so not sure which shoe to break in for St. Jude, I might rotate through both of them in November, and just make a race day decision as to which pair to go with at that time.