Results of the Bluffridge 5K

Austin, Jacob, Lucy, Jonas and myself were there at the starting line at 5pm. Cathi went on an errand and was late to the start. I packed her number with me so when I saw her at the end I could just give it to her. I was about 10 feet behind the first row of people at the start. I started my stopwatch just as I crossed the starting line so I could get an accurate timing just for me. I was able to get a comfortable pace after about 250 yards of passing little kids.

By the time I got to mile 1 my mouth was dry and parched. I passed up the first watering station (so did everyone else in front of me which were about 20 people at this point). The route weaved in and out of residential roads North of the school. We made our way to Antelope which was the turn around point. At that point I grabbed a cup of water quickly downed a few swallows and threw the cup away. All I needed was something to relieve the pain of my dry throat. I was able to pass a few people in front of me.

When I got to mile 2, I felt like walking but Hayden Buchi was only 30-40 yards ahead of me. When I got to around 2.5 mile. Hayden was walking and I caught him. He saw me coming up from behind and kept walking. I was expecting him to start running again. When I got up to him I said, "C'mon Buddy, let's go", so we ran the rest of the way together until we got to about 50 yards from the finish where we turned the last corner. We both sprinted. Man that boy has some long legs! He ended up beating me by about 15 yards.

I checked my watch at the 1 mile, 2 mile and I was very pleased to see my mile splits coming in at low 7 minute. I knew I would slow during the third mile. But I ended up keeping that pace thanks to Hayden. So I ended up with a shocking time of 21:14. I wanted to simply get 22:30 with a high visionary goal of low 22. I killed my ultimate goal by a minute! I couldn't believe that time! So here I am and I just entered the route into mapmyrun.com, and sure enough, it wasn't a full 5K. It came up as a 3.04 mile run. If that were a full 5K, my time resulted in a 6:50/mile pace. That's unbelievable for me! So here's the map.
Still 21:14 for 3.04 miles is a 6:59 pace which would have got me around 21:41 had it been the full 5K.

I'm struggling with counting 21:14 as a new 5K PR, but I ran my butt off! So I'm going to take that pace and calculate 21:41 as my new PR. I don't want to throw out the entire results of that race, just cause it wasn't exact!

At any rate, I took first place for the 18-39 category. I wouldn't have counted on that in a million years. I'm very pleased with my results.

After the race I laid down on the grass for a minute to catch my breath, then saw Austin cross the line a couple minutes later. I stopped my stopwatch so I didn't get his time, but I think it was less than 25 minutes. Jacob came in about a minute after that.

Then Cathi came, she started about 15 minutes after the start, but she kept her own time on the watch so that was good. Her time was 23:45 (7:49 pace). But given the distance that would have been around 24:17 or so. Lucy came after that. Jacob and I started walking back trying to find Jonas. We ran/walked all the way back to mile 2, no sign. So we ran back. Apparently he came just ahead of Cathi and Lucy and we missed him. That little kid is a real live version of Dash, the superfast superkid!