I survived the hills of the Heritage Lake 5k. As of 1pm yesterday I still had not decided if I was even going to run the race...but, I finally gave in. It was a beautiful day - a perfect day for a tough race. I would dare anyone to find a 5k course that is more challenging than this one. I expected to be about a minute off of my 5k PR from last weekend's race (21:56) but I was a little off.
I finished with a decent time of 22:27, beating last year's time by about 5:30 minutes. There were around 97 runners and I placed 11th overall. I was the 10th male finisher, with the first place female runner finishing just ahead of me. Out of the 10 people that finished before me, 8 of them were in my age group. So....unlike last year, no AG trophy for me this year. The 30-39 AG is a very tough grouping....lots of great runners. But, I placed 42nd out of 83 runners last year, so I'm pretty pleased with the improvement. :)
I do a lot of hill training, so I was fairly prepared for the tough hills. The downhill sections were probably more painful. In fact, during most of the race I was going back and forth with a guy that went to the same high school as me (he's an ironman athlete). I would pass him on the uphills and he would pass me on the downhills. But, within the last mile I really turned it on and ended up passing him and 3 other guys.
I have to admit, I never thought I would ever come close to finishing in the top 10 of this race. Last year I got smoked by my brother (26:31) and my bro-in-law (25:27), and 39 other runners. I had a blast this year, but I'm hoping we can all run it together again next year.
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