I have always liked this race. I think it’s the atmosphere. They consistently have over 200 runners and you potentially get to run in front of thousands of people. It’s just a nice race to do, and it’s only 3K, 1.86 miles. The competition is tough, but the runners are all nice. This year was no exception. The morning started off rainy. By race time it was sprinkling. The good news was it was cooler, but higher humidity. I felt decent. My right calf was still sore from Tuesday’s intervals, but not too bad. I never know how to start this race. This year I decided to try to go almost interval speed. I kind of knew how fast that was. Due to a whole bunch of people, Marvin started to the left but a little behind me. This messed me up a little because I’m used to following him in races. He quickly caught up to me and I think we ran side by side for awhile. Actually, I don’t remember a lot of that first mile; I was focused on a couple runners in front of me. My one mile time was 5.40 or 5.42. I know Marvin was a second or two in front of me then. Right after the one mile mark we ran around a barrel in the road and headed back west, we started the race going east. Due to the rain the road was wet and I could tell Marvin slowed down going around the barrel. I caught up to him and I think we ran side by side again. Actually, this part of the race was also a blur. I do know we had to run up a couple hills and it seemed like Marvin did really well on them. At one point we were running together and I realized I was running through water because of a low spot in the road so I moved to my right. This put me behind two other runners. Once I reached the top of the last hill I got this spurt of energy and sped up. I passed the two runners on their right and then started thinking that taking off like that wasn’t too good of an idea. The finish was farther away than I thought; I do the same thing every year, in the same spot. Toward the finish I heard people yelling and knew someone was right behind me. I thought they were yelling for Marvin. I just tried to keep going. I crossed the finish line without being passed. Once in the chute a runner did pass me but a volunteer quickly told him to get back. It turns out that runner was one of the two that I had passed. We ended up with the same time and Marvin came in right after that. I finished the race with a time of 10.56, 15 seconds faster than last year. I didn’t think I could get under 11minutes. I got first in age 35-39 and 10th out of 231. I’m pretty proud of being in the top ten with that many runners. You can go to http://www.egyptian.net/~minton/race/ for the results. Overall, it was a good race. I’m a little bit more excited about running races now. I now know what Marvin meant when he wrote about endorphins earlier this year.
(Marvin) Well after waiting so long Dave finally did it. He gave me the BIRD!!!
Fred Bird that is, along with my daughter Mollie. Dave was able to capture a picture of Fred Bird and Mollie at the parade that follows the run. Thanks Dave.
As for the race it turned out to be one of the more cooler 4th of July, but it still was muggy. I can't really say that my heart was into this race. As a matter of fact I would have rather stayed home and gone to bed after work. This is a sprinters race and I'm not into that mentality of racing. I even told myself that Dave would beat me at this race, so I already beat myself there mentally. The race started out with Dave ahead of me at the start, after awhile I passed him feeling good. I was 5:38 at the one mile and at the turn around barrel I almost had to come to a stop to go around it because the road was slick and wet. After that pause I couldn't recover my speed. Dave came up next to me and I kept on pace with him. There are a couple of hills and they didn't bother me a bit. I actually had to hold back not to surge up them. On the last hill Dave took off, which I thought was a mistake because I thought he would run out of gas. At this point in the race I didn't care, or have the energy to pick up speed and held my pace. I was running pace with the number 2 overall women. We were slowly gaining on Dave and then I heard foot falls behind me. A young guy I passed early started to sprint for the finish. I started sprinting too. He was able to catch me and out kick me finishing between Dave and I. I should say he almost knocked Dave down. I finished one second after Dave 10:57 2nd in age 30-34 and 12th/231. Eventhough I was not in the mood for doing this race I did set a PR for it. Two seconds better than 2006's race.
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