Violence Prevention 5K Waterloo, IL April 26, 2008

(Marvin) Wow! 18:53 and 2nd overall. I wasn't going to do this race, but Dave reminded me that last year he came in forth and myself in third overall. I decided to go even though I wasn't feeling it, and not having my one day of rest from training. This race starts out fast because of the big downhill start. I held back and watched who the leaders would be. It wasn't long into the run that they started dropping off except one runner. I kept a good striking distance of him until we had to run down a sub division that is out and back. When he turned around he saw how close I was he picked up the pace. As for me I just maintained my pace. I wanted to keep up just couldn't. The whole time I was running it felt like I was going slow, but when I saw my time I couldn't believe it. It seems like when I race it is a dice roll if I'm going to run strong or weak (if only I could get that +2 speed bonus roll). This is a nice race to go to. It's small, the people are nice, the competition not too tough, and they have good attendance prizes. Last year I didn't win a prize, but this year I won a nice bird house from Kohl's. I'm more excited about my time than placing second overall. It's the first sub 19:00 5k for 2008. I hope that I can do it again.
(David) My goal for this race was to get in the 20s. Last year I set a P.R. here with 19.58. I knew I wouldn’t do that this year. I have not been training like I should. Although I started earlier I still haven’t been motivated. Also, last year I was fourth overall and this year hoped to get third. They give top three overall runners nice trophies. Well this year my time was 20.30 and I was fifth overall. I did place first again in age 30-39, because top three got overall. Starting off I just kind of went with the flow. Since the first part of the race is downhill I didn’t want to go too fast. Before the one mile mark I kept my eye on the three runners in front of me. If I could pass those three I could be in third. I came up on two and passed them. The third kept increasing his distance on me. Before the two mile mark one of the guys I passed went by and almost caught up to the other guy. In the end they were probably 30 to 40 seconds in front of me. I guess I am comfortable with my 20.30 time because I have not been running or biking too much. It seems like this spring has been cold or rainy and I just don’t feel like doing anything. I’ll ride my exercise bike, but that doesn’t seem to prepare me for races too much. This year at the race they gave away more attendance prizes than last year. I didn’t win one but Marvin did. They drew for prizes and then announced the number of the winner. It was fun because we joked about getting certain “girly” prizes and when they didn’t call our number we were relieved. Too bad we didn’t get a gift card for the sandwich shop across the street, it seemed like they gave away a half dozen or more of them.