solar squirrel

Me, E-Speed, and Daisy Duc after the St. Malachi 5-miler.

Today was the St. Malachi 5-mile race in Cleveland. Since the last time I ran it I had over a 9-min mile pace, there was pretty much no pressure to PR it. I didn’t really want to go ALL out, but I wanted to push myself a bit. I ended up with a little over a 7-min pace, which was good enough to get me 3rd place in my age group. I started out w/ Daisy, and I guess after the first mile I decided that I would try to finish with a 7-min pace. I felt pretty good the whole time except for the dumb hills. I swear my pace doubles when I get to a hill. I need to work on that. I saw E-Speed a few times and she was cheering and taking pictures which was nice. I saw a few of the speedy guys from SERC who were heading back on the 4th mile and I cheered for them. About 1/4 mile to the finish it starts to go uphill so of course I slowed down, and wouldn’t you know it some lady starts to pass me - I let out a vocal ‘hell no’ (ooooops!!) and proceeded to pick up my pace. That lasted less than a second and she quickly lost any enthusiasm she had in her to race me to the finish - she was no fun!! - but then I felt bad so I was like “come on - let’s race into the finish”. She wanted nothing to do with me…oh well…I went ahead and picked it up a bit for the finish in and beat her. Sorry, lady! I like the competition at the end!!

5-mile splits:

1) 6:39 (downhill)
2) 7:00
3) 7:31
4) 6:57
5) 7:04

Finish Time: 35:11

The last time I ran St. Malachi I was over 45 min. Here’s to another 10-min PR!!! Woo Hoo!!