Spirit of Hope 5K

The 5,000 meter run brings a whole new pain level compared to that of your longer distance races. Pain, so intense and you may spill guts at any moment or suddenly can't lift your legs. That was basically my experience towards the second half of the 5k. 

Believe it or not I was actually excited to race this and nervous at the same time. I watched the Prefontaine movie with my Wife and boy, Rylan the night before as he has a cross country meet the next day also. Driving too the race I could feel the pressure running through my veins. Man, I've sure missed racing the 5k road race. 

This was the first 5K run that I've done in about 4 years or so. I didn't know for sure what I was able to do. I just knew I was fit going into it and I've been running good intervals for the half-marathon/half iron distance. I knew that Tomas, a runner from Longview just ran a 16:40 a month ago and that it was going to take a sub 16:30 to win it. 

My parents and me before I started my warmups. 

Chatting with Jimmie Jones. Believe it or not, about 15 years ago me and him would be fighting it out for whatever  place we were running for at the time.

I executed my plan just like I was planning to do. The course record for this was only 18 minutes, however Tomas, was here. Trying to run just below 18 minuteswas out of the question. It was a recovery week for me as I was in between training blocks, I didn't want to run any harder than I needed to. 

We take off and it starts out basically with three of us. This kid in blue takes out, he has nice running shoes so I figured I better get caught up to him in case he's a young speedster. Leaving the high school campus Tomas pulls ahead and I get right behind him. We hit the first mile in a cruisy 5:15. We slowed down quite a bit after the first mile.   I stay directly behind him before we turned into the residential area just after 1.5 miles in. At that point, I attacked and ran fast him around him so he wouldn't have a chance to respond and go with me. My two mile split was 5:17. I glanced behind me to see how far he was and  he was still right there, in stricking distance. I took no chances and kept pressing the pace up a false flat out of the residential area back up to main street surging the turns to keep adding distance between myself and him.  

Getting close to getting out of the residential and back on to Main street. 

 Turning onto Main Street my arms became heavy with fatigue and my turnover felt like it was slowing down. I also didn't know if I was going to be able to keep that pizza down from the night before. I came to third mile in 5:18, keeping fairly consistent splits, even though the effort had sky rocketed compared to the beginning.

On Main Street in my hometown heading back to Carthage High School you can see Tomas close behind. 

I came a way as the 2014 Spirt of Hope 5K Champion in my hometown and put my stamp on the course record of 16:29.2 at least for now distancing myself by 31 seconds on the second half of the race from Tomas. This race has the potential to be a must-do race in East Texas.

Finish!

I thank God for the allowing me to compete and win! Thanks to all the wonderful sponsors and volunteers who made this race possible for it's 4th annual and my supportive Wife, Parents, the Cobb Mobb, and Extremus teams.  It's going to be a tough 3 more weeks of training but I'm excited to compete in the Austin 70.3 and the Oilman Texas Half Ironman coming up within a month.