Fort Bend County Running Against Violence 5K
This weekend, I had a special event on the schedule. An organization my mother belongs to was one of the sponsors of a little 5K race outside of Houston, and she wanted me to head down there and run. I hadn’t run a 5K in almost two years, so I figured I was due. I didn’t really know what to expect going in. I just knew it was a pretty small race.
I showed up with my parents an hour before the start to warm up. After getting my bearings, I headed out for a jog along the course. It was nice and flat. I ran a little less than the first mile of the course before I ran into a pretty busy street and decided I would turn back. I scored all that about a ten-minute average pace. I was good and did all my drills and a little stretching. Before it was time to hop into the starting area, I did a few strides. While I was doing that, I saw another guy doing them and pointed him out to my parents as the probable winner. I saw a few other people who looked quick, too, as I was lining up. There were only a couple hundred people in the race, so I didn’t force the issue lining up. I was in the second row.
They started the race with a gun instead of the airhorn I’m used to from Austin, and it seemed like tons of little kids appeared out of nowhere. I had to navigate through them in the first little bit, but once I got through, there were just a couple other guys. I actually took the lead for a short time within the first half mile. There was a guy up there who had gone out really fast, and I just kept my pace and scooted past him. Shortly after that, the eventual winner (the same guy I had pointed out) caught me, and I ran along with him for the rest of that mile. It was pretty fun to be right behind the pace car.
I could tell he was a lot faster than I was, so I had to let him go so I wouldn’t blow up. I didn’t hear anyone behind me, so I just relaxed a little bit and tried to be consistent. I grabbed a tiny sip of water at the first mile marker and pressed on. When I made the turn around at the halfway point, I saw that there wasn’t anyone close behind me. I knew I had second place in the bag as long as I kept on going. Soon, I was passing the mile 2 marker and then seeing the place I had turned around during my warm-up. Then something neat happened. The motorcycle cop ahead came back towards me and drove in front of me as I approached the busy street so he could block the traffic. From there, I knew I was well inside a mile to go, and I just pressed on.
I rounded the final corner going as fast as I thought I could go. When I saw the clock, I was a little disappointed because I thought I might break 19, but I’ll be happy taking a huge chunk of time of my personal best with a 19:11 and going home with a trophy.
I realized at the end of that run that I could have kept going at that speed. I don’t think I could have run it any faster, but I could have kept doing that for longer. That’s probably good news for my half marathon coming up in a couple weeks.
I did about a two-mile cool-down run with guy that won the race. He lived in Austin in the early 80s, and we talked a little bit about some of the races that they had back then and what they still do now, and it was a lot of fun.