Wildlife Prairie Park 5K run

Today, Mat Timm (mathematics department), Tracy Harris (Foreign Languages) and I got together and went to the Wildlife Prairie Park 5K run.

The course was a mix of grass, dirt, gravel and small stretches of crumbly park road; I’d say that it had some rolling hills.

I’ve rarely done well in this race; twice this was because it came 2 weeks after my finishing the McNaughton Park 100 miler. This year it was more of the same.

Short verion: 26:30; each mile was 8:30 and the last .1 mile took one minute.

I saw many people that I know and I talked a good deal with the rest of the crowd. We lined up on a park road and were off; there was gentle rain that was to go away very quickly.

I mostly weaved in and out of traffic; I was following Larry Jeffries and Mat was following me. The congestion slowed me down a little but that was a good thing. The first mile came at 8:30.

I attempted to pick it up. No dice; I stayed steady.

The course was damp and soggy in spots but there was little real mud.

Mile 2 came in 17:00 and I mostly held on. In the last half mile (800 meters) a group of about a dozen people passed me, including Mat. He joked that he didn’t want to let an “old fart” like myself beat him (Mat is a couple of years older than I).

Mat had started at 9 minutes for the first mile and then sped up.

I managed to maintain and get to the finish with a little bit of dignity; I then socialized and went with Mat to cheer Tracy in.

Observation Many people mentioned McNaughton to me. Some thought that I was trying to racewalk this course. I still don’t look like I am running when I attempt to run.

Absurdity I There were some solid performances overall. But few showed up in my age group; it was probably the weakest age group there. So, I “won” a 2nd place medal though this is one of my worst performances. Go figure.

Absurdity II Just call me “Mr. Consistent”. Yes, this is the same course in 2007. Scroll down to 79′th place. This was my report.

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