Irish / Italian Fest

The weather for the 5K race on Friday night was just about perfect. It was cool - not cold and the rain held off. During the race I paced off of Steve. I have ran intervals with Steve last year and did a 10 miler with him and Sam a few weeks ago. I asked him what he thought he might run the race in to see if I should pace off of him. He said maybe under 20. Steve took off and led the race most of the way. After about half a mile I dropped right behind him. The first mile was at a 6:08 pace. That is a little fast for me. I was able to stay right behind Steve for a little over 2 miles. Then I started to drop off the pace. Steve finished in a PR (by about 30 seconds) at 18:3X. I POSITIVE split (meaning the second half of the race took longer than the first) by about 25 seconds. I was just trying to hold on for the last half mile or so.

Saturday it rained all day and I took the day off from training. Went to the Irish / Italian festival (read Guinness and pizza) put on by the local Catholic church. It was still raining Saturday evening. The swag bag from the race included tickets for food or beer. They also gave out samples of Irish whiskey. I ended up eating a meatball on a cone (yeah - I know - gross) and gained 5.5 pounds. These Catholic festivals are so much more fun than the Southern Baptist ones.



There was also another 5K race Saturday morning. Due to the rain only about 70 people showed up. This race had a cash purse of $100 for male and female winners. The male winner won in something like 20:XX and the female was 21:XX. I should have climbed out of bed - I actually like running in the rain.