Sunburst 5K

Ah, the Sunburst Races in South Bend. What a gorgeous race.  Starting in downtown South Bend and finishing on the 50 yard-line in the Notre Dame football stadium. In between some nice, quiet streets alongside the river. The marathon and half-marathon takes you through some beautiful parks. I ran the 5K, though.

And I owned it.

The race began rather mundane.  Just your typical large group, elbowing their way to the starting line and finding your pace in the pack.  The weather was cool in the upper 60's, I believe, and overcast...and a hint of a drizzle that soon dissapeared.

My strategy was to run 4 minutes and walk 1 1/2.  And that's what I did for the first half of the race or so.  Nothing remarkable.  I had hoped to keep my running pace at around 13 mins per mile and was able to stay pretty close to that goal.  I ran alone, which is both a pleasant experience and a lonely one, as most of my family stayed home.  They usually can't stand my slow place, so I would have been alone anyway. No matter.  The point is, nothing really happened.  That is, until I hit 2 1/4 mile.

I came up on two men.  They were tall.  They had earbuds in.  And they were talking.  Loudly.  It was clearly a father and son.  The older seemed to be my parents' age and I thought the son was about 10 years younger than me.  I'm pretty sure the dad was a runner, but the son was struggling.  My guess is that it was his first race.

So, they are talking loudly over the music in their earbuds.  It was a little annoying, but not too much.  I passed them and ran for probably another 30 seconds.  Then my watch chirpped and it was time to walk.

They pass me at a slow jog and get a few strides ahead...then dad turns to the son and says: "See, I told you."  And the son replies, "But I didn't say he wouldn't pass you again."  And dad says, "I'd like to see him try."

Now, I thought that was wierd.  I thought they may have been speaking about me.  But, whatever.  I just kept to my plan.  It was soon time to run again, and I passed them.

Dad says, "That's ok.  We'll catch up to him."

Ok.  So they are talking about me.  I pick up my pace just a bit.  But soon it is time to walk.

And they pass me.  This time they didn't say anything.

We're comming up on 2.75 miles now, and I'm getting irked.  I start to run when my watch chirps again.  And I pass them. And dad says, "That's ok.  He doesn't know how much I have saved up for the end."

"I".

He said, "I".

Not "We."

This shit just got personal.

At this point, I'm not stopping for any more walk breaks. I check my pace and I'm running at about 11:30.  They pass me one more time, but I tuck in behind dad and stay on them.  Soon enough, sonny needs to walk and I pass them.

They never passed me again.

I could still hear them talking behind me, so I had a rough idea about how far back they were.  I pick up my pace even more.  There's a long straightaway alongside the stadium and I got into a good groove at about 11:30 again.  Runners come around a turn to the north side of the stadium and I heard someone coming up quickly on my left.  I kick it.  According to my Garmin upload, I was doing 10:30 around that curve.  It isn't daddy though, just another runner.

At the north end of the stadium, runners turn into the stadium  for the home stretch.  I kick it again. What Garmin tells me is that I accellerated from 10:30 to 5:33 and back to 8:20 through that last tenth of a mile.  There was no way I was letting him past me.

Guys my size often flip-flop as to whether they are runners or if they're guys who happen to run.  Today, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am a runner.

I crossed the finish line in 42:31.  My mile splits were 13:47, 14:51 and 12:58.  I set a PR for a mile and a kilometer.  I did not PR the race, though, but I don't care.  I beat daddy-o by 10 whole seconds.

Because he didn't know how much I saved up for the end.

---()---

But that's not the end of my story.  I would be remiss if I did not at least mention my daughter.  I mentioned above that MOST of my family did come to the race.  My daughter did, and she ran the half marathon.  

She was remarkable.

She made her goal of keeping under a 9 minute mile and finished in 1:48:27.  I was able to catch her at the finish line.  She cried. I cried. We hugged.  Then we went out for a hamburger.

What a way to end her high school Freshman year.