Well the fall/winter racing season is now officially over before Houston. Probably my best season since 2006.

There was a 5k/10k time trial on schedule and I hate time trials. So I decided to try and find a 5k in the area. Unfortunately, the only one I could find was in St. Cloud (about a 90 minute drive), so I was almost stuck doing a time trial. Luckily a friend pointed out a race down in Northfield, a more reasonable 45 minute drive.

I really tried to keep the race quiet. I didn’t want it to become a big team deal (especially since I’m not the fastest on the team) and thought I might have a chance to pick up a podium finish, or possibly a win.

Wake up Saturday morning and the temperature was only 12 degrees. On the way down the temperature kept dropping. By the time we got to Northfield it was only 7 degrees with a bit of a wind. They had a bunch of snow on the ground from the previous weekend and the roads were fairly icy. I decided my goal would be just to break 20:00. I don’t remember breaking 20 in the winter, so I figured a winter PR would be good enough.

Get parked and go in the building to register and low and behold who is there, but Regina. Ack. She overheard me on Thursday mention it and decided to show up. Oh well.

We all got a two mile warm up in and my legs weren’t feeling fresh, but with my new racing mentality I didn’t let it bother me. Did a few strides and was feeling ok.

You know a race is going to be fun when you start it by singing Jingle Bell and go on the “dashing” verse. So we’re off and instantly it’s Regina, me, and some college cross country guy in the lead. Got about a quarter mile in and looked down at my watch and saw we were at 6:05 pace. I finally started a race properly!

Top two men…

I was fairly comfortable at this point and made a comment that this sucks to have to run next to Regina. She got up in my face and started pushing me. It was actually pretty funny. It was about a half mile in that the college kid got bored of us and took off. So it was just the two us. We went through the first mile at 6:08. Perfect.

I was really surprised that I was hanging with her (the last time we raced a 5k, she beat me by :45). I felt really in control for once. I guess the whole start smart thing works. About a mile and half into it I was trying to run in the tire tracks where it wasn’t so icy. All of a sudden Regina starts to come into my track and pushed me into the ice. Blah. I was like screw this and just stayed behind her. But mile 2 was in 6:02.

She was taking some chances in the corners, they were super icy, and I, being the old man that I am, stuck to the dry parts, which meant I was not taking the tangents. About mile 2 and a quarter, she put an acceleration in and dropped me about 20 yards. I thought she was completely gone from me. So I just kept trying to run within my abilities and she didn’t pull away anymore.

There was a nice downhill towards the end of the third mile and I really started to roll and started to pull her back. I started accelerating more and as we got to the bottom of the hill there was a left-hand turn and the finish was right there. Dangit. I ran out of room. I ended up in third by :05. Ack.

I finished in 18:55 (PR is 18:51), which is officially my second fastest 5k and fastest winter 5k by a good margin.

Not a bad day…