Hair of the Dog 5k

What a fun race and a great way to start a new year – just the motivation needed to get myself back on track for the upcoming running season. The cleverly named Hair of the Dog 5k was due to start at 10:00am, so that left plenty of time to wake up, have breakfast and relax for a while before driving to the race venue just 15 minutes away.

The 5k is only in it’s second year, but is already a very popular and successful race on the local running calendar. This year there were over 450 pre-registered, and judging by the queues, probably at least a couple of hundred more who decided to kick off the New Year with some fresh air and exercise.

After a short warm up (and actually it was warmer than I thought it was going to be), everyone made their way to the start line and prepared themselves for the off. I seeded myself a few rows back, enjoyed a quick chat with several friends before the gun sounded to start the race.

I’d covered the display of my Garmin Forerunner 305 so I wouldn’t be tempted to look and pace off the GPS speed reading. There was a $15 Road ID gift certificate at stake in my blog competition and I didn’t want to be accused of foul play, so I just decided to run by feel and give it my all.

The first mile felt fine. I gradually moved up through the field after starting off in around 30th place, and was able to run alongside local runner and fellow blogger Charlie who I predict will have a fantastic 2008. His 2007 was very successful and I’m sure Charlie will go from strength to strength and set several PR’s this year. I also predicted a month or so ago that it won’t be long before Charlie is beating me. You heard it here first ok?

Anyway, back to the race. I had no idea how fast or slow I ran the first mile, but I was breathing fairly hard and running as fast as I could. By now I’d moved up into the top 10 and was just trying to maintain a good rhythm and pace. Mile 2 came fairly quickly, my Garmin beeped to signal another mile had been completed and after a quick glance back I pushed the pace a little and thought about catching the runner up ahead.

I initially closed slightly on the person in front, but either he surged ahead and left me, or I slowed and lost ground on him. No matter, I was trying as hard as I could and decided to focus on my form and maintain as quick a cadence as possible.

With a little over half mile to go I sensed footsteps fairly close behind, and figured it was either Charlie on a mission or a couple of High School runners putting their younger legs to good use. Right up until the three mile mark I was aware of the mystery runner closing on me, but found a little something in reserve and sprinted in for the finish. Somehow I managed to hold off the fast finishing runner, but found out afterwards he’d beaten me by a fraction of a second based on chip time. Oh well, he made me work really hard right to the end – definitely a good thing. Oh yes, the mystery runner turned out to be 15 years old!

My finish time was 18:40 which I’m very happy with to be honest. I was expecting something closer to 19 minutes, so this is a good base to work from and a yard stick for future races. My mile splits were 5:50 (didn’t feel that fast), 6:08 (quite a windy mile) and 6:06 (encouraging that I was able to pick up the pace for the final mile). As an added bonus I was first in the 40-44 age group (8th overall) and picked up a cool Hair of the Dog silver medal.

The photo to the right shows the cool Hair of the Dog dog tag handed out to all race finishers – a nice touch to finish off a great race.

Next up is the Distance Series 20k on Saturday 5th. Last year I ran a big PR (1:17:27) after coming off a strong November/December. This year I won’t be putting as much emphasis on the time, speed or effort, and will use the “race” as a 12+ mile training run in the company of other runners. January is mainly about getting into regular routines and logging base building miles to strengthen my legs and lungs.

Looks like it’s going to be a fun and interesting couple of months…

PS Winning an age group award was especially gratifying as I actually designed the event logo for the inaugural race last year. Also, at the race this morning I heard several favorable comments about the t-shirt design proudly displaying my logo – always nice to get positive feedback, even if it wasn’t aimed directly at me.

[Finish line photo courtesy of KaleRunning.com]