Timlin 5K

I hate 5K races. To me, they are like sprints. As a marathon runner, I greatly prefer the longer distance races. That's because I can slow down my pace. And I like a slow pace. But with a 5K I feel like I am sprinting the whole time. So why did I run it? Well, I'm a member of a running club that has a Grand Prix Series where you get points for running Grand Prix races, and this was one of them. Why I really care about this, I don't know. My busy schedule doesn't allow me to run enough Grand Prix races to place in the top at the end of the year and get me an award. But I guess it's still enough motivation. I also knew I'd see some friends at this race, so I figured it was worth attending. But when my alarm went off at 7:10am, I was very tempted to sleep in and skip the race. I'm glad I went, but now I'm sleepy. And I'm going to be up late babysitting my nephew. Perhaps it's time for a nap!

Side note about the race that reflects one of my race pet peeves: the race had about 1,500 participants. There was chip timing (the new disposable D-tag) but there was no timing mat at the start. Without that chip mat at the start, you don't get your actual time that you ran the race. Your time reflects not only your race time, but the time it took you to cross the starting line. For me, that was about 30 seconds. I wore a Garmin 205 watch which tracked me via satellite and I hit "start" when I crossed the starting line. That way I could at least know for myself what my actual time on the course was (30:18, by the way). So I'm sure my "official" time will be around 3:48-ish. Oh well! The race is for charity (ALS) and I was told the chip mat at the start would cost 3 or 4 thousand dollars, so I can't complain too loudly.

Another interesting note: the Timlin in the name of the race refers to former Red Sox pitcher Mike Timlin and his mother Sharon, who passed away from ALS. Although Mike is no long with the Red Sox, he still got Tim Wakefield (Sox pitcher) to come to the race to sign autographs. It's a great event; not only do they typically have Sox players, but there are a ton of vendors giving free samples and a lot of activities for the kids. Giant slide, anyone??

Tomorrow it's a 9 mile run in the warm rain. Longest run since the NJ Marathon.