This past weekend we participated in a 5K. It was the first annual Jeff A. Reed Memorial 5K and 1 Mile walk. Jeff was a cousin of a friend of mine who was killed fighting in Iraq (friend's family pictured above). The event was a fund raiser for his memorial fund. Here is a snippet from the jeffreedmemorial.org web site:
"The Jeffrey A. Reed Memorial Fund, which was founded in 2010, serves as a memorial to Sgt. Jeffrey Reed, of Chesterfield, Virginia, who died of combat wounds in Iraq in March of 2009.
Founded in order to carry on Jeff's spirit of service and helping others, the fund works to raise awareness about the needs of veterans, specifically those from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, the fund provides financial support to existing organizations that serve this population, both on a local and national level."
Since this was the first annual race, there were not a whole lot of people racing. In the picture below you can see all the runners at the starting line getting the last minute instructions from the race director. You can see that the field is pretty small compared to more established races but this was their first one. Hopefully it will grow each year.
Below are a few pictures of the beginning of the race.
The course started out with one loop around the track before heading down the road and into the woods for a nice loop around some very pleasant trails. Below is a picture that shows me in the lead after two thirds of the one loop around the track. As you can see, there is one person behind me who I was slowly pulling away from.
Here is a picture of Melissa coming around in her first lap. Or another way to describe this picture is this way. Here is a picture of a guy getting chicked by Melissa.
After rounding the track and heading out to the road, I could see that I had a small lead over the second place runner. But I have a habit of going out too fast and slowing down in the middle of a race so I knew I would have to focus on maintaining my pace in order to guarantee that no one would catch me. It was fun because for the first time, I was running directly behind the pace bicycle. There were a few little rolling dips on the trail. I took advantage of the slight downhills to pick up speed and put more distance between me and the rest of the field.
As I made my way back to the track for my last loop to the finish, I noticed that there was no one behind me and I knew I had the race wrapped up. I could have slowed down at that point but when I hit the track I could see the walkers doing their 1 mile (4 laps on the track). When the teenage children of my friends saw me enter the track, they started running. They did not want me to run 3 miles in less time than it took them to walk 1 mile. The younger boy did not last long. The older child who is a high school senior was getting close to the finish line. But I put the hammer down and ran by her, shouting out her name as I whizzed by. Afterwards, I would look at my race data and notice that my best pace was 4:24 minute mile and that my max heart rate for the race was 197 beats per minute. I really did put the hammer down. Wow.
My total time was 21.39 which is not bad for a guy my age. And while that is not really a fast time for most races, it was enough to win this small local 5K. The race was quite fun and since it was the first one, I guess that means I get the course record too. It was also great to see my friends and catch up with them. And Barb always takes such great pictures. Maybe I can get her to come out to some of our other events.
Thanks for reading.
