10/8/17 Shuck and Share 5K

Back here after a few years away.  Now it is a local race, since we just moved to Hood Canal full time!  Actually in the middle of moving, it was tough to find decent clothes to wear but we made it work.  Cold for the 8AM start, but dry.  $25 entry includes a nice pair of running socks, chip timed, free entry to Oysterfest and all of the promo items that the PUD#3 could not give away recently.  Plastic cup, Seahawks schedule on a magnet, clip thing, blinking safety light, tiny paper pad shaped like a light bulb, pen and many more things that we really don't know what to do with, especially this week.  Chipped timed by the other Fritz.  Great organization, raffles, timing, course, volunteers.  This all more than makes up for the Sunday race (not my preference) and the Active dot com registration. 

Start - mile and a half warm up and I feel ready to go.  See a few friends at the start, but then we are off.  Lots of kids here, so many bunched up at the start line.  I stay back and hope to pick off many of them as the race progresses.

Mile 0.2 - First kid is walking, another is veering left to right.  Since we have a whole lane blocked off with cones, plus the shoulder, there is plenty of room to run and pass.

Mile 1.0 - 7:33 - Feeling really good and passing people gradually. The long flat straight stretch is really nice.

Mile 1.5 - Now the turn and the short ups and downs.  Pace slows but no one passes me.

Mile 2.0 - Gaining on a young man, but watching a kid farther ahead who keeps looking back.  We are gradually catching him.  I pass the man and suggest that we can both pass this kid who keeps turning around.  This gives me the incentive to keep at it, plus the course if flatter here.  Push really hard and get closer to the kid, but he turns it on at the end and it is never close.

Mile 3.1 - Finish (3.07 on the GPS).  No pains or issues of any kind and I have been a long while now without any nagging injury.  Sixteen seconds slower than two years ago, but my fastest 5K in a year and a half.  Cheer on Jody and the others.

Love the quick print out of results.  Jody wins some Tupperware in the raffle which will roll around in the trunk of my car until the move is complete.  She is happy with her time and we are back home before 9:30.  Nice way to start the day.


23:27
16th place of 136
Race#427, 5K#112
*****