Saturday, March 1, 2008

UTSA Diploma Dash 5k

Time: 55:00
Distance: 9 mi.

Goal: Finish in the top 3, run under 15:00
Race: 4th in 14:58*; mile splits: 4:40, 4:47, 5:00?

Joe and I headed down to UT San Antonio for the Diploma Dash 5k. The main appeal was decent 3-deep prize money. I saw that last year it had gone about 15 flat, so I figured it would be worth a shot. I am hoping to race more regularly, so this fit with that as well.





It became clear fairly quickly that there were five guys seriously in it and (by the mile) that it was going to get strung out. Westly Keating led it from the get-go and never looked back. Joe led and tried to fight off Klbet Cherop but couldn't overcome his kick in the final straight. I felt a bit over my head coming through the mile in 4:40 (which I was) so I settled in 5th for most of the race. In the last half mile I was able to track down and outkick Derek Yorek, which gave me some satisfaction given that the race was far more competitive than we were expecting. It was deceptively humid given that the temperature was pretty mild.


1 Keating, Westly 465 14:02.1 14:02.1 4:31 1 1 Pharr TX
2 Cherop, Klbet 891 14:26.5 14:26.9 4:39 2 2
3 Thorne, Joe 752 14:27.2 14:27.2 4:39 3 3 Austin TX
4 Washburn, Owen 797 14:56.0 14:56.0 4:48 4 4 Austin TX
5 Yorek, Derek 887 15:01.2 15:01.2 4:50 5 5

Check the race site for full results and more information.

I was going to run a shakeout in the afternoon, but ended up playing a few hours of volleyball instead. It was a fair trade.

*I am listed at 14:56 in the results, but this picture shows that is clearly not true. They messed up the results and I think took my guess of "14:56-14:58" right after the race to put in a time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Owen! Sorry to see that you didn't make it in the top three. Still a pretty good race. Why do you call Westly K a cheater on your blog?
I think he totally kicked ass. Joe did awsome too. See you,
Sandra

Owen said...

Thank you for the message, Sandra. How did you run across my blog?

I write this log primarily for myself, but obviously it does attract a somewhat wider audience. I probably should not have personally weighed in on the topic, and I have updated the post to reflect that, but a cursory search of the LetsRun forums should suffice to answer your question.

Marcelo S said...

I too ran across your post as I was looking for info on the race and noticed the comment about Westly. I appreciate how you modified the post. I have been working/training with Westly for a little less then a year. I find him to be a great kid and even better athlete.
I wish you good running.


If you want to read about Westly's progress, I recently started blogging. Search for Westly Keating Runs - littlechampion.blogspot.com/

Owen said...

Thank you for your good wishes, Marcelo. To be clear, I did not changed my post because I have changed my perspective on the topic, but because I do not think that my running log is the right place for this discussion.