I felt like I kept a pretty good pace. The first mile was way too fast, and I was doing some dodging. Second mile was slower than I'd hoped, but I was having a difficult time getting a good breathing rhythm going--I think this was exacerbated by the humidity. Third mile was good. I started my sprint with about a quarter mile to go. Here's where my race got screwed up. I was going by the Garmin distances, and I started sprinting with a quarter mile to go, but there was almost ½ mile left to the finish line. I ended up having a good sprint, but not being able to maintain it long enough, and I had to ease up, until I saw the finish line. I sprinted to the finish, and, for the first time, got out sprinted by someone (usually they're all so far ahead of me). By the time I hit the end, I was pretty sure I was going to collapse, but I managed to stay on my feet until I found Dwayne.

Run a course that is actually 3.1 miles long instead of 3.3 miles ;) If the Garmin is right, I ran a 28:52 5K, BUT official time is official time, and that's what I have to go by.

Use the Garmin, but not look at it, or at least, not count on the distances matching.

I still have a lot to do to improve my endurance--which I think will improve my 5K times. Marathon training will help immensely with this.

Found my way to D and the kids. We walked around, and finally located rkreuser, trixie and G8RSAX. Stood around for a few minutes chatting, then, realizing that the rain was arriving, booked it for the car. Decided to bail on the kids 1/4 mile race. We'll do a mock one tomorrow for them.

The rain was crazy driving home. We're just glad to have made it safely back. Saw at least one rollover accident on the freeway.

Was great to meet G8RSAX, wish we'd had more time to talk, but the storm really curtailed that.


Me. I mean, even with the 30:36 time, it's almost 1½ minutes faster than my fastest 5K so far, and that was in June. I'm really improving alot, and I just have to continue training to continue to see results.

(My age-group rank is absurdly high--probably because all the "good" runners were doing the 10-miler or the 8K)


It's a good race, but not terribly family-friendly, because there's just SOO many people there (I think 7000 people ran the 10-miler). We've had more fun (with the kids) at the smaller races.

The rain didn't help. There were lots of cool things set up for the kids, that we just didn't have time to check out before the storm started.

Not sure if we'll do this one again next year. If we do, we'll stay in Flint, instead of driving up the morning of, and probably leave the kids at home.