Fibark 5k 1st Place, 16:49

For the first time in a couple of years, I ran a race this weekend. Results here.

Salida’s biggest festival of the year is the Fibark festival, which happens every year at the peak of whitewater intensity in the summer. It’s mostly a kayak, rafting, paddle-boarding deal, but they throw in a few running races for good measure.

I didn’t have anything going on this weekend, and I felt like I was in decent shape, so I decided to give it a go. 

I ran 16:49 for 3 miles. It was labeled a 5k, but it was short. 

My main competition was two of the kids I coach on the track team, our likely 2nd and 3rd runners for the upcoming cross-country season. They were talking a lot of smack going into the race, but I was reasonably confident, given that they had just taken two weeks off at the end of the track season, and I was coming off some 60-65 mile weeks. 

The course goes up for 1.2 miles about 130 feet, and then rolls back down to where it starts for the remaining 1.8. 

We went out in 5:52, which was not easy for an uphill at 7250 ft. I told the kids I coach that when we turned back to town, I was going to make a move, because if it came down to a sprint, I didn’t want to be racing a 2:05 and a 2:07 800 runner in a dash to the finish. I ran a 5:30 and then slightly faster for the next mile and that was good enough to give me some space for the win. 

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I’ve decided that I need to get over my silly perfectionist tendencies when it comes to racing. I have it in my head that I can only race when conditions are perfect and I’ve had a perfect lead up, but I put a lot of time into running, and I might as well get out there and race on occasion. 

I was never that good to begin with, but I’m getting older but I’m not yet slowing down. I think being a coach has made me smarter about my own training, and that’s helped me fend off father time a little bit.

Still, that trend won’t continue forever. Might as well get out there and get after it while I still can.