Rudolph's Red Nose 5K Recap

That's me in the Man Up shirt and UT Santa hat!

I didn't have a lot of expectations for this race going in.  I'm still mentally dinged up from my marathon, and I didn't run at all this week (instead I did some may-as-well-have-not-even-bothered light cross-training and weight lifting).  Considering how poorly I did last year in this race, my hope for this race was to finish around 22:45, which would have given me 7:20/mi.  The race officials also changed the course this year, adding another hill right after the 1st mile.  Masochists.  I know, I know.  I've run hillier and longer courses before, but there's something about familiarity with a race that makes any change nerve racking. During my warm ups, my right calf felt tight and all of the sudden, 7:20/mi seemed like it would be a real accomplishment.  After my usual last minute pit stop ritual, I scooted over to the start line to find a spot.  There were over 1400 runners this year and it seemed like they all decided to run at the front of the line.  I was annoyed.  I tried not to be (since I was really just running for fun), but I always am.  I started out behind a trio of particularly annoying 8th graders, so I navigated the crowd to an open-less-teenager-y spot.  Then we were off, and up Woodland Street Bridge.  I tried to keep my pace easy but quick, and soon I found myself moving up ahead of the pack.  I could see the lead pack and fought the urge to sprint up and cover ground.  Instead, I held my pace, breathing hard, but moving well (as opposed to my side splitting run last year).  For the last 1/2 mile, I tried picking up my pace and crossed the finish, tired but still standing.  My splits ended up being 6:51, 7:16, 6:59, and 1:09 (6:30/mi) for the last .1 mile.  That gave me a time of 22:17.  Better than I had hoped for, but far from my best.  I hung around to check the official results, and Bam!  I scored 3rd in my age group! (Never mind that there were only 37 runners in my age group).  It's nice to earn some more hardware for my office.  I guess being 40 may not be that bad after all.  Maybe...