Race Day!

Have you heard the flu is going around?  I've had it for two weeks now, and while I'm feeling much better than I did that first week I'm now very sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Enough is enough.

I've been a good boy and doing the rest and tons of fluid thingy the past week and even though I felt like I could run I haven't.  Rest, rest, rest is what doctors are preaching regarding the flu and I'm paying attention.  It does bug the crap out of me that I've missed two fun weeks of my awesome training spreadsheet and the beginning of my interval workouts again, but I figure if I take it easy now I'll be better off in the long run.  Hey, I just used a running metaphor in a blog about running!

Sweet.

So, two weeks off and I had a race today in the Outer Banks.  I registered for it awhile back and since it was a 5k I decided to use it as a way to move back into my running with a short, relaxed run with my friends in the Outer Banks Running Club.  And, once again, they put on a really nice race.

The Frostbite 5K is the OBRC's annual membership race and they do it up with something cool each year.  This year we got embroidered jackets!  Here being modeled by myself, Matt and my Cancer Compadre, Shane.  That's my buddy Joe the Plumber in the white.  ...and, yes, he actually is a plumber.

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The weather this year was really warm, about 60 degrees, but it was a dreary looking day with all the fog.  There was an Adrienne Barbeau sighting early on and a couple of people thought they saw a guy covered in seaweed carrying a big meat hook.  From what I heard, though, we had as many finishers as we did starters so all were accounted for.

 

The Front Porch Cafe provided coffee and hot choclate and others brought cookies for all the runners to enjoy.  Shane played EmCee at the beginning to introduce the new Board of Directors for the club and get us all over to the starting line.

 

I lined up with a few of the folks I know, figuring I'd go out pretty quickly just to move my legs and see what my lungs felt like.  I got a picture of Jessica who went on to be the top female finisher as we were covering the first couple of hundred meters.

 

 



 
She's very quick so I was lucky to get a picture.

Another friend, Pete was with the lead group and right behind me when I got the picture.

"Hey look at Ed running a 5:30 pace!" just before he chugged on by me and left me in his dust.

However, I did get a picture of him LOSING to me for a little bit there.

I settled back into a comfortable pace when I had a brief coughing fit and decided I wasn't getting any air in my lungs. My legs felt great, but I wasn't going to be going to set a PR today. We ran through a neighborhood that led back up to the dirt road that would take us up into the woods to the turn-around. A few more people passed me as we went and got a couple of good pictures as we ran.

The dirt road.

The trail after the turn-around. High fiving friends as we passed each other. About here I decided I needed yet another running self portrait since I just think that's funny.

Goofy, yes.

 

Then it was back down the dirt road, through the neighborhood and a hard right turn through the finish line.

 

 

 

I got a 23:06 official time, so I immediately told myself I could've found 6 seconds almost anywhere on that run, but it was off to the coffee and cookies!

 

 



 

 

Thanks OBRC for another fun race!  Looking forward to getting back on track (literally) and actually making Pete race me....