There hasn’t been a 5k since last June, but the first of several over the next few weeks was this morning. It was the UVA Naval ROTC 5k. On this calm and crisp fall morning I headed off to UVA on my bike. I got there in time to stretch and get ready to run. I was hoping to get under 22 minutes. There is one really long steep hill here in town that I had never gone up called Observatory Hill. Needless to say it is tall enough for the local observatory. I found out that the course goes straight up the hill. Ugh. The average age of the race crowd was around 20 and everyone had on their Navy shirts. A rather fit looking bunch.

I started the race and up the hill I went. I kept thinking I must be close to the top and I saw the trees starting to thin out. It turned out that was about the half way point. I stopped for a few seconds to pull up my knee bandage (and suck some wind as they say) and then I continued up. Eventually I made it to the top and finally got to head downhill. That part sure was fun. By mile 3 I had recovered from the first mile of straight uphill and really picked up the pace.

I finished in 21:32. Not bad for the first race of the season, and the fact that I did a four martini happy hour last night. We’ll see how it goes over the next few weeks. Can I get my time under 20:30? Can I get down to 20 minutes? I really wish they would have an evening race here in the village.

I’ll keep you posted.