Village Runner 4th of July 5k - July 4, 2013

Village Runner 4th of July 5k.

This is the race that started it all.  I first ran this race back in 2004.  Today was my fourth time doing this race.

This once was a nice small local race.  It seems to have out grown itself.  I had a hell of a time finding a place to park today.  In the past I never had any trouble.  To be fair, in the past I might have arrived earlier.

Lots of people there this year.  Funny thing is, every time I do this race I run into a fellow co-worker, Greg.  All those people there and I ran in to him right off the bat.  On the other hand another fellow co-worker, Kathleen, and I were going to run together and we NEVER ran into each other before the race.  She did spot me while we were running. But we were in different stages of the race.  I looked for her after the race and never saw her, but I ran into Greg again.  Go figure.

Village Runner 4th of July 5k

I had a good training run yesterday and I was hoping to have a good run today.  Today's run wasn't awful but it wasn't quite what I was hoping for.  I had hoped to ran a 12:00 minute mile pace or less.  I hit the first mile in 12:00 minutes and was on track but I ended up slowing down considerably towards the end.  Unlike my last race, this course was a bit hilly and by the end they had taken a toll on me.  I ended up finishing it 37:52 with a pace of 12:11.  Not too far off the pace I had hoped for.

I finished 2,101 out of 3,003 runners and I was 111 of 190 runners in my age division.

No bling in this race.  It's one of the few races I'll do that doesn't offer a finisher's medal.

At home after the race.