Running of the Leopards 5k- Jason Thomsen

When I woke up Saturday, I rolled over to my wife and told her I didn't want to race. I was too tired and didn't feel confident that I had done anything really beneficial the last two weeks to help drop my time to as close to 16 flat as I could. She told me to lay there and think about it for a few minutes so I did. As I fought this internal, mental struggle, I kept hearing the words of my dad in my head: "Just go and do it. Stop making excuses." After a few minutes I sat up and said, "I'm racing."

Between nerves and "Don Miguel's Revenge" from dinner the night before, I was not the most excited to race. I was running to and from the bathroom and even drove to this sketchy gas station to use their restroom before the race started because I didn't know how much TP I would need. I took the last bus up to the line and got there with about 15 minutes til race time. I hopped off the bus, stripped down to my racing gear, threw my bag in the truck and warmed up for only a quarter of a mile. When I lined up I saw Dave Taylor & Golden Harper and was a little more at ease because I knew some familiar faces. My race plan was to go out blazing and push harder through the first 2 miles and come through around 10:30 and then try to negative split my 3rd mile. I knew by trying for that I could come close to 16 flat.

When the gun went off, I took off with the leaders. It's a pretty runner friendly course and so when I looked at my watch for the first time I saw 1:03 for .25 miles and immediately thought "oh shiz..too hard"and so I backed off a bit. I saw Dave Taylor up ahead as we continued and knew I needed to catch up to him. Right at the mile mark we were side by side. We went through mile 1 at 5:08. Solid. Once I went by Dave I kept looking ahead at this high school kid who had fallen off back of the lead pack of 4. Target acquired. I knew Golden was going to be right behind me too so I didn't want to let off the gas at all. I hit the 2 mile mark at 10:25, 5 seconds ahead of schedule. I knew the last mile was going to continue this downhill trend and so I pushed harder and harder. I could see the high school kid in front of me coming back and I knew I was in a good place. As we hit the track we had to maneuver through this little entrance and the kid and I were within 2 seconds of each other. I looked at my watch going onto the track and saw 15:00. At this point I had only 325 meters to go and so I gave it all I had. When I look at the video my wife took it looks like I am hardly moving but my watch has me running 4:45-4:50 pace/mile the whole last lap. As I crossed the finish line and saw 16:08, I fell to the ground and just stayed there for a minute. I was red-zoning pretty hard and was also in disbelief because I finally had broken my high school 5k PR. I thought I had it two weeks ago at RLR but that course was only 3.02ish miles. What an incredible feeling! I am grateful to my wife for pushing me to not be a wuss and for my dad who even though I live far away from him, I can still hear his voice in my head telling me to not give up.

Time: 16:08

Overall: 6th

1st in Age Group