JV 5000 Road Race

Time: 60:00
Distance: 9 mi.

Goal: Win, don't kill it.
Race: 16:32 (5:23, 5:09, 5:27) for first.
Results

I headed over to West Springfield pretty early this morning to run a small 5k with a little bit of prize money. I've been unmotivated to run since I've gotten back, so I figured that this was a good enough way to get a decent effort in. It was a chilly morning and I was still a little cold after my warmup around the neighborhoods near the school where the race started. I really appreciate the heated seats in my car on mornings like this, though, and my hamstrings got a 30 minute warmup on the drive over.

It was apparent that I would be running with two other guys right away: Carlos Rivera, an icon of the Western Massachusetts road race scene, and Sean Callihan, a younger guy. We ran together through the first somewhat downhill mile in 5:23, which felt like a crawl (despite my side cramp from coffee this morning). The next mile was very downhill, and as we started to reach the second mile marker I made a move to separate from the other guys. Carlos stayed with me for a little bit, but as we started to climb up all of the elevation that we descended in the first two miles I opened up some room and finished comfortably in 5:27.

The whole race was a pleasant experience, and a nice fundraiser for a leukemia charity. The race is a memorial for a local boy who died of cancer a few years ago.