Instead of doing the Feaster Five again this year, I decided to join the group heading to Salem for the Wild Turky 5 miler. It’s been a while since I’ve run a 5 mile road race. It was a pretty chilly morning, temps were in the lower 30s. I had two goals for this race, one was make sure I beat Heidi, only because Julie kept telling me that she was going to beat me. The other goal was to try and run 7 minute miles. I knew my friend Ron was going to shoot for 7s and he is usually right on the money.
Heidi and myself started right next to Ron up near the front. Ron shot out in front of us and at what felt like a pace I had no chance of keeping up. I even turned to Heidi and said, “I can’t keep this pace up for 5 miles”. Ron did slow a bit after the first half mile or so and I managed to catch up to him just as we passed mile 1. At that point we had done a 6:50 and Heidi was just behind us. We continued to do the next two miles at 6:55 and 6:57. As we started to head back on mile 4 I was feeling good and picked up the pace a little bit 6:53 and 6:45 for the last one. My official time was 34:37 and my Garmin had the course a little long at 5.07 miles.
I didn’t have any issues with my IT Band, so I think I can say that it has healed up. Although I will keep up the Foam roller and stretching exercises just to be on the safe side. It’s been 8 years since I have gone under 7s in a 5 miler. Felt good and I if the weather is nice I hope to break 7s again at the Frosty Four on the same course.