Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Executive Stampede

I ran the Executive Stampede on Sunday for my company.  It's not a team in the manner of cross country where they score top runners, but just an overall participation total.  Since starting with my current company in 2008, I've done this race 4 out of 5 years.  It's had some highs and some real lows.  Last year I had a goal of being the first finisher from my company, but I was a moderate second.  This year I had no shot as a new hire was the overall winner in sub or low 16s.

In 2008 this race was my first formal race in 7 years.  I ran Shamrock in 2001 and promptly stopped competing, changed my focus to Australian Rules Football.  I was still playing Ausball (the rec league level of coed Footy) and continued the rest of the summer with intense practices so I was in shape and ran a somewhat respectable 21:30.  Here's a picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brrc/2891547391/in/set-72157607532068062/

The next year I wasn't keeping in shape with the footy and I ran one of my worst times ever, 23:53.
 Notice the difference in the picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brrc/4163342172/in/set-72157622946997174

Somehow I missed 2010 even though I was running a bit more, and ran two other 5ks right around then--Great Prostate Challenge and the Dustin Bauer memorial race, both around 24:00.  Last year was 20:40 and some progress towards running competitive times.  I was second for my company and 16th overall, in a less competitive year. 

This year I wasn't trying to run a recent best time because i'm not in that kind of shape at the moment and it's not really a fast course.  Going under 20 was nice, and the 10th place finish is my best since Francie's 5k.  I wound up 3rd for my company which was ok.  And I followed it up with 9 1/2 miles on the NCR since I was already north of town. 

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