4th Fest 4K, 2006 Edition

Since this was a short, relatively flat course, I wanted to go all out for this race. That meant I had to get nice and warm before the start. So I did some stretches, my usual balancing poses (which fire up the stabilizing muscles of the lower legs), and a few wind sprints. I got to the line ready to go, and then I had to wait. There was a huge turnout for the race,over a hundred more runners from last year, and the organizers were having some trouble dealing with it. No one's fault really, these things happen, and really we got off just a few minutes late.

Nonetheless, I got a little bit tight in the wait, so I didn't get out to the start I wanted. In fact, I didn't feel like I'd really hit my stride until beyond the 1-mile mark. I was able to finish strong though: I did the last half mile in 3:13, which is pretty fast for me. And I felt like I could have kept up that pace for a while, too, although no faster.

I finished in 17:58, 88th overall. (I made it to the second page of results.) I was 10th in my age group. You can see the complete results here.