Mud In Your Eye 5k

Just thought I’d post the MotionBased Viewport from this morning’s Mud In Your Eye 5k XC race. My finish time was around 19 minutes 10 seconds, which means I beat my pre-race prediction by about 30 seconds. Despite fading slightly in the last mile, I’m very happy with my performance and looking forward to another solid week of base building.

Pictured on the left is the longest climb of the race, which occurs early in the first mile. Luckily the incline isn’t too steep, unlike some of the shorter slopes scattered throughout the race – some of which are real leg and lung busters!

Click on the photo for an enlarged view of the climb with the Westin Hotel, the tallest building in Virginia, in the distance.

More details to follow once the official race results have been posted….

Well, results have been posted and I must say I’m happy with my performance. Running a cross country race at Mount Trashmore is never easy, but this was my fourth running of the Mud In Your Eye 5k and I knew what to expect. I deliberately held back in the first mile as everyone else was jockeying for position and wasting valuable energy in the first 200m!

At the top of Mount Trashmore, at about the 3/4 of a mile mark, I could see at least 30 runners ahead of me – but still feeling good and gaining momentum on some of the fast starters out in front. After a quick downhill followed by a short, steep uphill, I hit the first mile in 6 minutes 9 seconds – a little quicker than expected to be honest.

The second mile was a mix of another steep downhill followed by an almost identical uphill with a section around a hill and across to the perimeter of the lake. The surface wasn’t great, but my choice of Nike spikes was a good one and helped to maintain good traction on the course. I must have passed about 10 runners before reaching the second mile mark in 12:19 – a 6:10 effort almost identical to the first.

Mile three was a struggle. After feeling great at the two mile mark, I quickly faded and could sense the lactic acid building up in my legs. I passed a few more runners who were fading worse than me, but also got passed by a couple of younger High School runners. I managed to dig deep and held on for a 6:22 mile which gave me a finishing time of 19 minutes 10 seconds – my second fastest time in four attempts at this particular race.

Scanning through the results on Saturday afternoon I noticed I was the first old guy to finish! 🙂 As Mud In Your Eye is a three race series, I need to pay close attention to the guys behind me in my age group – I desperately want to win the 40-44 male age group and win another cool Mud In Your Eye award….