Star Trax

Last night I headed to Salem for the Start Trax 5K. It starts at 9 pM and has luminaries lighting the course. There were some ominous looking clouds on the way there. I got registered, nice red Tshirt, even some swag. A tooth brush, floss, (I guess a dentist is one of the sponsors) some Udderly smooth foot cream, and a coupon for a free dunkin doughnut. Better then most area races. We did a warm up and it started to pour has we finished. It was a quick down pour, just enough to turn it into a sauna. I love humidity!

We got lined up for the start on the high school track, about 500 runners. It was a slow start but opened up some soon has we completed the loop and onto the roads. Someone later told me it was cool sight watching that many runners on track in unison. Still the first mile was slow, crowded. I got to first mile in 8:58, and threw out any orginal goals. Except the one about not finishing in an ambulance. I made a new goal to negaive split every mile. I was passed by local weatherman Rick Morgan some where around here. He's usually around my pace but he pulled away a little. Plus harder to follow in the dark.

I made the negative splits the next 2 miles, mile 2 in 8:33 and mile 3 in 8:10. I had caught sight of the weatherman again right before entering the stadium. the finish was a little over a loop of the track. I gained a little the weather man, passed the 3 mile marker and then decided to try and sprint it in, since I had recently got over my fear of yaking up at the finish line. I passed Rich Morgan and then this young kid started to sprint in so I wouldnt pass him. Im going to say I let up a little so he finished right in front of me. I had negative split it, beat the weather man and couldnt PR so no point yakking up at the finish line.

I finished in 26:10ish (not positive on time yet). It's a fun race and I was a little faster last year but if things had gone a little better I would of been in the 25's. Some day I might even train for 5K's. But that might take the fun out of it.