St. Paddy's Day 4 Miler

19:56, 1st Place Overall / Course Record & Personal Road Best

3-05-2006; Coconut Creek, Florida (7:15AM)
SPLITS- 5:04, 10:05 (5:01), 15:00 (4:55), 4:54

* Once again, a big mental debate whether to race or not, but I figured I had 36 hours of rest after my 24:36 at Calle Ocho on Friday night, so I squeezed in an 8-mile run at 6:30 pace on Sat. morning, and then worked the baseball game at mid-day before driving up to my brother's place in Pembroke Pines for the night.

Awoke quite tired and we arrived a bit late to the start, so my warm-up was quite limited. It consisted of about 10 minutes of jogging, stretching and strides. My right quad (tear-drop) felt a bit bruised and beat up, but otherwise I felt pretty good. Just tired. I started out slowly, in the lead pack for the first 400 meters, checking out the competition and boxed in, but once I got daylight, I took to the lead (someone followed, breathing heavily) and powered on. I expected to see the mile at 5:00's or so and there it was, at 5:00. Felt a bit effortless. I figured, let's keep it to the turnaround (out-and-back course, my favorite). So, after a hairpin turn that slowed me down quite a bit and disrupted my rhythm, I rolled up on 2 miles at 10:0-something. Oh, now it was a game of beating the next clock to 15:00 as the lead cyclist would turn on each clock as I approached. So, as I got closer to 3 miles, I saw him setting the clock at 15:03.. argh, but then he yelled, "15-flat" and I thought, great, let's get this under 20-minutes.

The event record, to the best of my knowledge is 19:38 by my former college nemesis, Brit, Eddie Ernest-Jones, but that was on a much faster course. However, I figured if I could run under 20-minutes it would at least look good and so far I was running very smooth and effortlessly tired, if you understand my sensations. Finally, coming up on the finish, I saw the sub-20 in the bag and relaxed. If I would have pushed all the way in, perhaps I would have run a 19:53 or so, but no biggie, it was fun and effortless and a great confidence booster. I had now completed 9 miles at sub-5:00 pace in a little over 24 hours and felt good.

Perla, Madelyn, and I enjoyed pancakes and the Leprechauns and we headed home so "Papa" could take a nap and head to work another baseball game at noon.... Pressing on...