Deja Vu

Two years ago when I ran the Playmakers Autumn Classic 8K, I ran about 20 seconds behind my buddy Tony for the first 3 miles. Eventually I passed him on the 4th mile and beat him by 9 seconds. I hadn't forgotten about that and I was talking trash to him at work in the past couple of weeks, and he said it wasn't gonna happen again. Well....

Sorry, Tony...

It was pretty cold on Sunday morning here, about 37 degrees when I left my apartment at 8am, and the race was at 9am but I warmed up pretty quick and went with a singlet and shorts, as you can see in my picture. I was guilty of thinking about my knee in the couple days before the race, so I wore my IT Band strap too just in case. The warmup went well too....well, except for the part where I tripped on my sweatpants and skinned my knee on the road. It was a blessing in disguise though, as the "road burn" took my mind off my IT Band and made me focus on my running better. It's weird how that works out.

Eventually the starting gun went off and we were racing. There was pack of 12 or so runners (including Tony) that sprinted out, but I let them go because I didn't want to go out too fast and ruin my game plan. First mile went by in 5:46, which was right what I wanted. Most of the first three miles I ran with the leading woman, and I think I let her dictate the pace a little bit because I slowed to 5:53 and 5:51 in the 2nd and 3rd miles. I was also about 20 seconds behind Tony the whole time, and when the 3rd mile marker passed, I knew it was time to drop the hammer. Now or never, right? I left the leading woman behind and went after Tony. He had another guy with him, and I passed him about a quarter mile into the 4th mile. And then about a quarter mile after that, Tony was in my rearview mirror, almost exactly at the same point as two years ago. After that, the closest guy ahead of me was way up there, probably about 150 yards ahead, so I was stuck playing mind games with myself. Nobody to chase after, was Tony gonna catch me? Am I slowing down? Am I starting to get tired?

Apparently the last two questions were a no, because my 4th mile was 5:38...which really surprised me. But I shook it off and tried to keep it up for the last mile. 5:45 later, I was thru the chute with a finishing time of 28:53, which is 5:46 pace and a new PR, good for 3rd in my age group and 9th overall. The craziest part of it all was that I beat Tony by 8 seconds...almost a carbon copy race of two years ago. Weird, huh? And to tell you about the wonders of chip timing, the closest guy ahead of me was WAY ahead of me....yet some 18 year old turd beat me by one second. Oh well.

All in all, it was a successful race for me. Would I have liked to run a little faster? Of course, but it was my first race since last October and I was just wanting to get back into the swing of things.

In other news, MSU won again, this time an even harder fought 17-13 victory over Pittsburgh in which the defense stayed strong throughout the whole game and especially in the 4th quarter. Next up is Notre Dame in South Bend, and I'm really liking the prospects of another Spartan victory down there. Especially since the Irish haven't scored an offensive touchdown in their first three games and are 0-3. Sorry Jess :)

So that's that. 13 days til the half marathon!