my wife and i got up early so we'd have plenty of time to drive to lawrence from my parents' house in eudora. we donned our race gear and left the house around 7:20. after a quick stop for gatorade at a convenience store on highway 10, we continued on to massachusetts and turned north. we drove through downtown and over the kansas river. across the bridge we made an immediate right into the parking lot at the visitors center, grabbed our gear and headed toward the school where the race was to start in a little less than an hour.
finding the school was a piece of cake. there were people walking or jogging there everywhere we looked. we arrived at the school and made our way to the gym. we found a spot to put our stuff down and started putting on our race gear. we'd worn winter coats in the car and we needed to lighten the load a bit. at 8:00 we were ready to go, our race numbers in place.
around 8:20 we headed out the door to line up for the race. my wife walked a little way toward the back and i found a spot about four rows back from the starting line. that's where Laurie E. found me. she stepped up beside me and said, "are you mike?" another dailymile meet up!
at 8:30 the starter counted down to the start and sent us on our way. i took off at a pretty good pace weaving my way in and out of those around me. when i felt like i had a bit of space, i settled into what felt like a reasonable pace and ignored those who passed me. my goal was a PR and i knew i could easily blow my chances by overdoing it in the first mile.
i followed the crowd around the first corner and headed south toward the river. the road curved around back to the east as the field spread out a bit. i hugged the edge of the road trying to make sure i didn't unnecessarily add distance to my run. i ran the two blocks east and then headed north again on 6th street. the course did a quick zig zag and then we ran a bit longer eastward stretch till we turned north again. every time i turned north i was thankful (it is thanksgiving you know) that the predicted high winds had not materialized. it was 21 degrees, yes, but not 21 with a windchill of 9. i don't know exactly where on the course i passed the 1-mile mark, but i looked at my watch when i passed the marker. i'd run that first mile in 7:20 and i didn't feel miserable! so far so good.
after another eastbound block or two on maple and we headed south toward the river. there was a bit of a downhill there. that's not saying much. this course was F-L-A-T! flatter even than any of my routes at home!
just before passing the 2-mile mark a bunch of friendly volunteers were handing out cold water. cold water! are you crazy! it's 21 degrees out! i passed them up and hit 2 miles at 15:20, an 8:00 second mile!
the 2-mile mark was right at the turn back to the west along the river. i talked briefly with a guy who was running near me. he felt awful. i urged him on. "come on! less than a mile to go!" he decided he could outrun me and took off. grrrr!
a few turns later, i thought i had five and a half blocks, but i was wrong! i turned again and realized i was less than two blocks from the finish line! i picked up my pace and turned south onto 5th street. i saw the timing clock. it was still under 24 minutes! i pushed as hard as i could and crossed the line at 24:11, my best time at 5K by 39 seconds! my final pace was 7:47 per mile, 12 seconds per mile faster than my 5K just two days ago. i must be a cold weather runner.
after a short rest to get the nausea under control and to remind my heart and lungs what they were supposed to do, i started walking back along the course to find my wife. i found her about a block and half from the finish line and jumped out on the course to run her in. she picked up her pace a bit and passed a number of runners including one she pipped at the line. the timing clock read somewhere around 35 minutes, but we don't know how long into the timing she was before she crossed the starting line. we're still waiting for the results to be posted www.runlawrence.org.
we walked around a bit to cool down and then headed back into the gym to change into the extra clothes we'd brought. there's something special about warm, dry gear after a hard run.
we hung around long enough to see the first few pages of results posted. we weren't on them, so we headed to starbucks. i'd bribed my wife with good coffee to get her to run this morning.
we got our drinks then drove back to eudora where we were greeted by the rest of our just-getting-up clan.
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