Thursday, November 22, 2012

Gobble Wobble 5k - Hermitage, PA

Woke up today ready to hit the 2012 Wobble Gobble 5k in Hermitage, PA.  Last year, I ran the race and got a 22:38 and was only the second race I had run.  I also had runner's knee in my left knee so I figured that wasn't to bad.  This year, I felt ok coming into it after a year of training for a marathon and running a bunch of 1/2's and 10 milers as well as 20ks.  So Heather and I get to Bhul Park around 7:45 am - way to early since the park doesn't even open up until 8am.  Around 8am, we park and head in to pick up our bibs, then back to the car to escape the 29F heat wave.  8:45AM rolls around so I do some dynamic stretching, then do a ~2 mile warm up jog just to loosen up the legs.  I find now after running all year, I need at least a mile or two just to get my legs warm.  This year they moved the starting line back to the bridge which was a major pain in the ass.  No one seemed to know where that was and it caused mass chaos.  One thing that I do not like about this run is that there is when the gun goes off, that is your time.  No gun time vs. chip time so your ass better be in the front.  This year was well represented by half of PA high school XC finest - it seemed like every school in the county was represented.  I on the other hand was scoping out the old men in the crowd, you know the 40-44 crowd which is hard to do b/c some don't look their age and some look even older.  I felt that if I was going to place, I had to run a sub 20, plain and simple.  Back home, you can't even sniff your age group place unless you are in the 19's or less.  So I worm my way to the front and the race director hits the horn and were off.  The group is led by a bunch of shirtless fools who peter out around 100 yards, then they start to walk.  I keep my pace and hit the mile mark around 6:11, fast given the first mile encountered a nice little uphill.  The second mile had me at 6:59, much slower..however, there clock and mine on the garmin was much different.  The 2 mile mark (their clock) had me at 13:09, definitely in striking zone to a sub 20.  The notorious last mile contained one of PA's finest uphills which cut my 3rd mile to a 6:32 even though I felt like my lungs were going to explode.  Coming to the finish I see the clock at 20:11 and say shit and just run it in for a time of 20:32.  Heather busted her ass on the course and did a hell of a job too getting a 24:56 for third place in her age group.  After chilling for a little bit, the results come out and I had come in FIRST in my age group (40-44), actually 1st out of 59 runners in my age group.  However, I was 61st out of 1489 runners but there were 25 15-19 aged runners before me...



its hard to compete with father time!  So, finally, I got my first age group award, here is a picture of it below:


Gleaming with pride over our run today, we both got some random dude to take our picture with these cheesy medals on but hey, I will take it anyday.  We were both pumped to get a age group place and actually made the day.


Overall, I was sad I didn't break 20 minutes but this is actually only my 3rd 5k race run at my speed since I began running last year.  All the other races had been 10ks, 1/2 marathons, 20ks, and a marathon.  The other 5k's were pacing the boys which is around 10 minute miles.  If we do this next year, I will want to go sub 20 for sure.  I am going to have to start doing track and speed work if I am going to start doing faster mile times.

No comments:

Post a Comment