Red Rooster Ramble 2010, #4

(Results) This Red Rooster Ramble was relatively uneventful. After the previous week's hard effort to run 31 minutes, I was ready to drop back down to 32 minutes this week.

I wore my older racing flats to see if it was the shoes that were making my feet fall asleep. This experiment was successful in a sense, because my feet didn't fall asleep this week. So if the trend continues, I'll stay with these flats.

I also didn't do strides -- I figured, no one else is doing strides, and I'm not going all-out this week, so I might as well not bother. This was a bad idea, because my legs felt heavy and slow for the first mile. Next week I'll do strides, even if no one else does them!

On the starting line, one guy said he was going to see how fast he could run the first mile. The starter said "go" and he took off across the parking lot, with Alan and me behind. I told Alan what the guy was up to, and Alan took off to catch up with him. After about 1/4 mile, Alan passed him. I could hear this guy Billy right behind me, and Billy passed me around 1/2 mile or so. Then we both caught the "fast mile" guy and almost immediately after, I heard breathing behind me. I was surprised, that the fast mile guy had accelerated and was right behind me! But no, this turned out to be Bob (the fast mile guy dropped very fast).

Bob, Billy and I all passed the mile in about 6:10. Over the next few miles, Bob ran fast and disappeared into the distance, and Billy slowly increased his lead over me. I harbored some fantasies of catching him, but I didn't. I had my chance before the 4-mile mark when he missed a turn, but I shouted ahead and he made a U-turn and got back on course. I was surprised that my third and fourth miles were within a few seconds of my time from last week, because last week I was really going for it and this week I was not so much. I kicked the last 1/2 mile and ended up in 31:44.

Alan won, the top five of us all went on a jolly cool-down together on the bike path, and there were tacos for dinner!