DAM 5K Race Report

I ran the Douglas A. Miller 5K (DAM 5K sounds so much more appropriate considering how I feel when I'm actually running one) this morning. It went well, considering. I had run this race once before, two years ago. That time, it was just one week after I had set my then-PR at the Brookings Marathon, so needless to say I wasn't feeling all that speedy. I ended up running a 22:25 that day and got 3rd in my AG (my first ever AG award).

To be honest, I wasn't really feeling like Speedy Gonzales today either, but at least this time I've had a whole two weeks to recover from my most recent marathon PR. I knew from running this race before that the course definitely was not conducive to setting a PR thanks to 1.5 miles or so of almost constant upill during the first half of the race. Since it was a loop course, that meant we eventually got some pretty serious downhills, but by then my still-fatigued legs were feeling pretty well dead to the world, my lungs were on fire, and my stomach was seriously considering emptying itself. I did manage to put in a kick on the very last descent, with the finish line in sight, but I just didn't have the speed I should have while running downhill. That's what you get for running a 5K two weeks after a marathon, I guess. In any case, I finished in 20:24, 6th out of 68 overall and won my age group in my very last race as a twenty-something year old. My time was about 40 seconds slower than my 5K PR but, given the cirumstances, I'll take it.

The pic is of me approximately 10 feet from the finish line. After I finished I assumed the "I can't friggin breath and I think I'm gonna hurl" position for awhile before I managed to get enough oxygen to my brain to function somewhat normally. Ah, the joys of running a 5K!