I had to leave the house quite early. The start time was 7am and I was not familiar with the area or course location. Eventually I found the race location and was able to find a parking spot right next to the starting area. I picked up my packet gathered myself and was ready to start my warm up when I saw Rudy Rocha.
Rudy was a fine runner in his day. When I first picked up running he was on the down swing of some of his faster times. But I believe he was still hitting high 15's low 16's for 5k. So he was someone I was always finishing behind for quite a while. Well Rudy and I had never formally met each other until today. He joined me for my long run and gave me some tips for the course. After all, I was in his backyard and he actually worked at the school that was located at the starting line. He was a very gracious host. He gave me some background on some of his running history which did happen to coincide alot with Sean's history. He had run sub 15 for 5k 33 times. Very beastly if you ask me. He mentioned that back in the day at one of the bigger road 5ks he ran 14:17 and ended up finishing something like 13th. Crazy! Back in the day those guys trained like animals. Well anyway we ended up finishing our 2 mile warm up and started to get ready for the race.
It ended up being a little hot and muggy at start time. Jon Walk had just come back from Hawaii and was announcing the race. He did a great job. He added some course history tidbits such as Sean Wade had the course record at something like 24:19. He also mentioned a couple of our names which was a nice touch. As the start time neared all of the contenders started to appear at the front of the starting line. Junior Mitchell, Vaughn Gibbs, Joe Oviedo, and my boy Carlos Arias (young assasin) were the cast of contenders.
Eventually the gun sounded and we were off. We didn't get out too fast as I believe everyone was a bit hesitant because of the heat and because it was 5 miles. So I took my time and was patient the first mile. Eventually Junior Mitchell overtook me but I thought to myself we can do this, let's relax and enjoy the run. We click off 5:16 for the first mile. The 2nd mile was relaxed and Junior let me take the lead. I didn't really mind because I didn't feel like we were moving terribly fast. We clicked off 5:18 the second mile. The 3rd mile is where I believe Junior sort of fell off the pace a bit but something funny happened during the run when the 2nd Corvette pace car got stuck in a narrow lane because the runners were making the course lane too narrow for it to pass. So I stopped for a little bit to see if he could make his way through. The Corvette pace car signaled for me to go around so that's what I did. This allowed the guys behind me to catch up a little. Eventually the pace car figured it out and overtook me. I finished the 3rd mile in 5:19. Somewhere at the beginning of mile 4 Carlos caught me and really worked to stay with me. I just relaxed and decided to save a little something extra if I needed it at the end of the race. Mile 4 was 5:14. It was during the 5th mile that I started to put some distance on Carlos. I looked back and he wasn't there anymore. Last mile 5:17.
5:16, 5:18, 5:19, 5:14, 5:17 (13.5 extra seconds on the Garmin)
Not a terribly fast time but it just shows I can run pretty comfortably at or near 5:15 pace for 5 miles in hot weather.
Rudy was a fine runner in his day. When I first picked up running he was on the down swing of some of his faster times. But I believe he was still hitting high 15's low 16's for 5k. So he was someone I was always finishing behind for quite a while. Well Rudy and I had never formally met each other until today. He joined me for my long run and gave me some tips for the course. After all, I was in his backyard and he actually worked at the school that was located at the starting line. He was a very gracious host. He gave me some background on some of his running history which did happen to coincide alot with Sean's history. He had run sub 15 for 5k 33 times. Very beastly if you ask me. He mentioned that back in the day at one of the bigger road 5ks he ran 14:17 and ended up finishing something like 13th. Crazy! Back in the day those guys trained like animals. Well anyway we ended up finishing our 2 mile warm up and started to get ready for the race.
It ended up being a little hot and muggy at start time. Jon Walk had just come back from Hawaii and was announcing the race. He did a great job. He added some course history tidbits such as Sean Wade had the course record at something like 24:19. He also mentioned a couple of our names which was a nice touch. As the start time neared all of the contenders started to appear at the front of the starting line. Junior Mitchell, Vaughn Gibbs, Joe Oviedo, and my boy Carlos Arias (young assasin) were the cast of contenders.
Eventually the gun sounded and we were off. We didn't get out too fast as I believe everyone was a bit hesitant because of the heat and because it was 5 miles. So I took my time and was patient the first mile. Eventually Junior Mitchell overtook me but I thought to myself we can do this, let's relax and enjoy the run. We click off 5:16 for the first mile. The 2nd mile was relaxed and Junior let me take the lead. I didn't really mind because I didn't feel like we were moving terribly fast. We clicked off 5:18 the second mile. The 3rd mile is where I believe Junior sort of fell off the pace a bit but something funny happened during the run when the 2nd Corvette pace car got stuck in a narrow lane because the runners were making the course lane too narrow for it to pass. So I stopped for a little bit to see if he could make his way through. The Corvette pace car signaled for me to go around so that's what I did. This allowed the guys behind me to catch up a little. Eventually the pace car figured it out and overtook me. I finished the 3rd mile in 5:19. Somewhere at the beginning of mile 4 Carlos caught me and really worked to stay with me. I just relaxed and decided to save a little something extra if I needed it at the end of the race. Mile 4 was 5:14. It was during the 5th mile that I started to put some distance on Carlos. I looked back and he wasn't there anymore. Last mile 5:17.
5:16, 5:18, 5:19, 5:14, 5:17 (13.5 extra seconds on the Garmin)
Not a terribly fast time but it just shows I can run pretty comfortably at or near 5:15 pace for 5 miles in hot weather.
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