An unexpected PR

Gordon and I were wandering around Key West with some friends on Friday night, feeling a little tired and slightly hungover from the few drinks we'd had in South Beach Miami the night before, when Gordon spotted a registration table for the annual "Hogs Breath 5K" race to be run the following morning at 8am. Gordon was keen to do the race. I was feeling tired and making excuses. It's not that I didn't want to run the next morning, and in fact we had already run along South Beach earlier that day, but I just wasn't feeling up for trying to run fast. It's been a while since I've run a 5K without swimming and cycling beforehand, and in the back of my mind I knew that I'd be disappointed if I didn't beat my 5K PR that was set at the Schlotzky's Bun Run in 2004 (24:07)!

Anyway, I stopped making excuses and we signed up. Then we had a couple of glasses of wine, had a cheese platter, gourmet pizza and key lime pie, then had an early night while our friends headed out for a few more drinks. I wasn't taking the race too seriously but I also didn't want to feel like total rubbish the next morning!

Before the start of the race, Gordon and I decided that our tactic would be to just run it easy to the turnaround point, then pick it up on the way back. But everything changed when the horn sounded and suddenly we were actually taking it seriously! We ran together for most of the way, right up to about 1.25 miles to go. Then Gordon picked it up and I never caught him. He was only ever about 10s in front of me but I just didn't catch him. He was too fast. He ended up crossing the finish line in 23:29 and I crossed in 23:39. Personal best 5K times for the both of us!!!

Our friends were at the finish line to cheer us on, which was unexpected and very cool. The added benefit for Gordon, was that they got to see him beat me. He got at least a few hours of mileage out of that.

Thanks for talking me into signing up for the 5K, Gordon, it was fun!