North Fairfield Lions Street Fair 5k

This was one of those "I've got the itch to race" runs for me.  North Fairfield is a tiny burg about 40 minutes from home.  W wanted to go to this one, so we got up a bit earlier than we would like on a Saturday and headed out.

The town is basically two roads intersecting with a few homes and very small businesses.  I haven't done many of these tiny races as I used to, but really enjoyed doing them when I lived in the Dayton area.  There's a certain charm and you get to see some hidden areas of the state.  The race started at the village park, which was actually much nicer and bigger than I would have guessed.

The weather was perfect for mid-July.  It was high 60s, cloudy, with a cool breeze.  I felt decent coming in and thought I might be able to beat my last 5k in Galion.  We headed to the meager start line and headed out on the out and back course.

I felt great from the get-go but tried to not get carried away.  The course was pretty flat with a few very small rollers.  I started in the top five and just held steady there.  A runner who I met and ran a warm-up with earlier was running the same pace, so we just ran together for the majority of this one.  We hit the cones for the first mile in 6:25.  Right on pace for a nice race.  We passed one runner and made our way into a tie for third.

There were two high school runners in front of us and we both thought we might have a chance to catch them.  But my will to run a PR type race lowered when we hit the turnaround.  My watch showed 1.47 miles.  Crap.  This was going to be a short race.  We both slowed down a bit, though still hit the second mile in 6:24.  When the heck is my second mile faster than the first in a 5k?  I can't think of many times at all.  I still knew it was worth pushing for a good time and passed my fellow runner to get into third place.  The return to the park was a net downhill which helped me at the end.  I finished with a 19:05(!) but my GPS showed the course at 2.96 miles.  I'm guess I would have been around 19:45, so I'll go ahead and count this as my third sub-20:00 of the year.  That's more than all other years combined!

I did finish in third overall, out of probably thirty-some runners, and finished first in my age group.  Next up is the dreaded 10k distance.  I've been running better 5ks than ever before, so I am hopeful that will translate to a 10k PR.

Next race: Plymouth Fireman's Festival 10k- Plymouth, OH