Raynham ~5km for Kicks

Time: 57:13
Distance: 13.85 km

W/u: 15:45 for 3.27 km
Race: ~5k from the front
C/d: 24:44 for 5.35 km

I was at an account last week and the owner invited me to come out for the weekly Monday night 5k. I figured it wouldn't hurt to show up and was told this night would be particularly special. The gentleman who has organized and timed this weekly "race" is moving to Florida with his wife who has cancer. They were leaving at the end of the week and this was the farewell event. There was lots of picture taking and other conversation that you would expect when someone closely connected to the running community decides to move on. It was pretty cool to see and after the race I got to shake the guy's hand (since this is written a couple of weeks late I have embarrassingly forgotten and too lazy to look it up).

A few minutes before the race the owner who invited me pointed out the guy who always wins. He was probably a junior or senior in high school and while there are many high schoolers out there who could smoke me, but this guy was not it. Considering I was coming off a big week I had no ambitions to force the pace from the start and would wait to see the opening split.

Splits:
3:15.13, 3:13.19, 3:09.66, 3:13.71, 3:09.00, 43.21 for 16:44 total and 5.23 km (3:12/km pace)

We got off the line and I hung back for the first 400m. We were not running particularly fast so then I shot to the front and dropped the pace. The traditional winner came with me for another 400m and then he was slipping back. At this point I knew the race was essentially over and it would be a glorified workout. I held an honest pace to the base of the hill that starts at mile 2. From there I started pushing to keep the overall pace from dropping. I managed to hold things together and finish without going to the well. I had been told before the race that the course is slightly longer than 5 km and more like 3.25 miles. If it were a 5k my time would have been about 16:00 or so. Not anything to be overly elated about but moving in the right direction.