Race 28 - North Brunswick Memorial Day 5K

I almost had to forgo today's race because my son's baseball team reached the finals of the Readington tournament. Since I am one of the coaches and I had already missed 2 out of 4 games this weekend, I didn't want to miss the championship game. Game was at noon so I had time to run and coach. They got beat 12-0 and played terribly in the field but it was still nice to watch and Michael was the starting pitcher. Unfortunately, he was treated like Johan Santana, with little defense and zero run support. No big deal because they played well for most of the weekend.

I am not sure if I ever ran 3 races in a row, so I wasn't sure what to expect today. Not only was it 3 in a row but 4 out of 7 and 7 out of 10 days with a race. Today's race was 10 minutes away which makes it a no brainer, plus it is also the first leg of the Brunswick Cup series. Four races in the the Brunswicks, prizes to any runner who runs 3 out of 4, and a champion crowned who runs the lowest cumulative time in 3 out of 4 races. The course was changed this year to keep the runners just on the path, unlike last year where we started on grass, ran on the trail, back to the grass. Unless it is advertised as a trail run, runners like to run on one surface only and especially stay of the grass. Grass tends to be uneven and holes seem to pop up out of nowhere.

My legs felt surprising good despite the 10 miler yesterday so I figured to go at a 80% clip today. I ran into Erin Varga who is the race director of the Jimmy D 5K in New Brunswick which is the 2nd leg of the Brunswick Cup. Also in attendance was Renne Levin, a former BC winner and Bobbi Binder who holds the distinction of being the first entry into the Run with the Vikings 5K which I am the race director. I also ran into Eric Davis who ran a February race with me and coaches the Hyland Park HS track team.

My first mile was 6:45 which I thought was about right and I felt surprisingly good despite the muggy conditions. I figured at that pace I would be able to go sub 21 which would have been good since it was my third race. The split at mile 2 didn't appear for awhile and when I hit it at 14:15, I thought it was strange since I was still running well. I finished up with a 22:28 which was a lot slower for the effort I put out. Afterwards a bunch of us thought the second mile was long which is a usual runners response when their times is not to their liking. Oh well, it still was a great weekend of running and meeting friends and making new friends.

I split right after the race to head to Readington and my son's baseball game. I am taking a few days off to prepare myself for Saturday's Brooklyn 1/2 Marathon.