Running & Racing

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Seminole Stampede 5k

Time: 19:47
Overall: 6 out of 100
Age Group: 1 out of 9
race results

I finally (officially) broke the 20 minute barrier. This is one of my favorite courses so I couldn’t have happened at a better place. My first mile was 5:58 which was my fastest first split. I knew I was running fast (for me) but I didn’t feel that I was pressing too hard. For the 2nd mile I tried to back off a little and was aiming for a 6:30 mile which I missed by 2 seconds. My second split was 12:30. I tried keep the 3rd mile at the same pace and ended up with a 3rd split of 19:05.
I replaced some of my longer runs this week with intervals and I think that really helped. I have two more 5ks in the next few weeks and I plan on using the same training strategy. If the weather cooperates I think I could finish under 19:30.

As for the race, it seemed a little disorganized this year. Apparently the person entering the runner info into the computer missed a lot of data because there were about 15-20 runners (including me) that were missing from the preliminary results. During the awards, the person reading the results didn’t have a clue. He was probably given the results pages out of order but he should have known that you hand out the overall awards first and then work up each age group. This guy starts at men 30-34 and then fits in the overall before the 50-54 age group. I didn’t want to watch the train wreck so after the overall got his award I took off.

Since this is my favorite 5k course I’ll be back next year.