Today was the Uberthons' Run for Kyron race. For those not in the Portland area, Kyron Hormanis a little boy who disappeared 2 years ago on a school day, when he was 7 years old. It's a story that's been in the local news quite a bit, with a resurgence yesterday after Kyron's birth mom sued his stepmom based on allegations that the stepmom is responsible for his disappearance.
Race time was 8 am for the 10K and 8:10 for the 5K. I had gone to bed early last night (well, early for me -- 11:30 pm or so) and got up today at 7 am. Breakfast was cherry yogurt, and then I headed out to Cook Park in Tigard.
There was a good sized crowd present: race volunteers, Kyron-cause volunteers, Kyron's dad Kaine Horman, a 3-person musical band, and even a news crew from KATU (the local ABC affiliate). I picked up my racing bib and then did a short interview about Uberthons and racing with my friend Eileen, who's a consultant with them.
It's a familiar race course; I ran it back in late April, and an earlier variation of it in March and last November:
Knowing that I've run positive splits (not a good thing) the past few races, I had in mind that I wanted to go out slower at first and then speed up. I even positioned myself near the front of the 5K group. Yes, it's chip-timed, but I don't like having to keep huffing "pardon me, excuse me, pardon me" as I pass people.
The first mile felt okay, and I thought I was going slower, but I hit the first mile marker in 6:37. Definitely not slower! Predictably, it took its toll on me. Since my goal was to go under 22 minutes, I figured I could let up a bit and try to speed up for the last mile. Mile 2 was kind of miserable. Even slowing down, I felt that kind of running-discomfort -- not injury-pain -- and this segment had a short but steep uprise.
Finally, I hit the mile 3 marker. Mile 2 had taken 7:20. I was still on pace to ge tunder 22 minutes at least, but I didn't feel recovered at all. Mile 3 ended up being slightly slower, 7:27, but I had enough saved up that I was able to race the last 0.11 miles.
According to my watch, my time was 21:59. According to the initial race results, it was 8 hours, 32 minutes(!). Ha ha, chip glitch of some sort obviously. It was later corrected manually to 22:09, which is quite a big difference from my watch.
Anyway, I finished 4th overall out of 75, and 1st in my age group.
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