Founder's Day 5K

This was my second chance to run a race with my oldest son. Since the first 5K he has been asking me to find another race to do. Like many of us he was finding it difficult to get out there and run without a goal. His three week summer break offered the perfect opportunity. We had our choice of several races this weekend but settled on the Lomita Founder's Day 5K and 10K. With California being a relatively young state Lomita was celebrating their 100th anniversary.

We got there in time to find parking and get registered for the race. This is the first time that I've not registered for a race before hand. Tyler called almost daily to see if I had registered yet. We did a 1/4 mile warm up, basically just because we had the time.

The race got started on time. It took us about 10 seconds to cross starting line near city hall. The route was basically a big square taking us through the neighborhood and back to the starting line. The course was very gently down hill on the first leg of the square which meant that the third leg was up hill. Tyler's A goal was sub 30:00, with his B goal of improving on his last time of 34:00.

The first mile came in at 9:23, way ahead of where we needed to be to break 30:00. I'm not very good at judging pace. The fast start would come back to hurt Tyler later on. Soon after the 1 mile mark Tyler asked for a walk break. One minute later we were running again. At this point we began leap frogging an older gentleman (turns out he was 75). He was in a cotton t-shirt, gray sweats and what looked like cross trainers from the 70's. He was just plodding along steadily.

Mile 2 came in at 10:36, including the walk break. That was still less than 20:00 for 2 miles but we couldn't afford to slow down at all to be able to break the 30:00 goal. Mile 2 was followed by the second walk break. Mr Gray Sweats ambled on by us. Soon after we turn the corner for the long uphill.

There was a short but significant climb at the end of this leg, around mile 2.5. I really tried to encourage Tyler to keep going up the climb, but he opted for a walk break. I insisted on keeping it short. He had also complained of a side stitch earlier. We slowed down some to help ease the pain.

On the last leg and just before the 3 mile mark, Tyler took another short walk break and then took off like a bolt of lightning for the finish. The last 1.1 clocked in at 11:50 for a final time of 31:48 on my watch. He managed to pass someone just before the finish line. I finished a few seconds later. With the addition of the 10 seconds to get to the starting line our final times look like this:

So although he didn't make his sub 30:00 goal, he did set a new PR by 2:03. It was very cool. Tyler was shocked when the winner of the 10k (twice around the square) crossed the finish line in 35:30, just 3.5 minutes after us.

While he's home we are going to run the Surf City 5K on July 4th. That was my first race back in 2003. He will finally get to run a completely pancake flat course. I expect this PR won't stand for long.