Run For Rita

This morning it was 28f and the ground was covered in light 1" snow. The snow, although less that ideal, wasn't worrying me as much as the cold gusts of wind.

Perhaps 75 people showed up. Mostly families with kids just there for a 5k walk.
I estimate about 10 of us ran the 10k and maybe 15-25 ran the 5k.

Being one who doesn't enjoy drawing too much attention to myself I felt pretty intimidated with the looks at the Vibram Five Fingers (VFF) I was wearing. I decided to run the first half in VFFs, then if the trail turned out to be good, ditch the VFFs and run back barefoot. There were quite a few people who asked questions about the VFFs and even a guy who said he runs in them once a week. He unlike me didn't get the idea though and I really don't think he wanted to get rid of the cushioned shoe.

At the time of beginning the race I think the temperature was at least 35f, the snow was gone from the asphalted bike trail, and the sun peeked out on a 50/50 scale keeping me just warm enough while not moving.

Right after getting the green light, one guy took off like on fire, another one right on his heels. For the first 1k I held my usual comfortable pace in 3rd spot, already way behind the first two. Soon two people passed me, a male and a female, and I decided to stay on their heels and just try to keep up with them. This worked pretty well although it was a pace faster than my own comfortable one. But hey! that's what a race is for right?

At the 2k point, the second fast runner was coming towards us. He apparently "only" ran the 5k distance.
At the 3.5k point the first very fast runner was coming towards us. It seemed a bit fishy, and it turned out he had chosen to turn around at a point making his distance 7.5k.
So as far as 10k runners go, I was now in 3rd spot.... granted the number of runners was limited but it's the little things that count when you run!

Around mile 6 or 7, the male in the couple in front of me began dropping back. I don't blame him, the female was one of those runners that look like they are so relaxed they could be taking a nap while running.

For the remainder of the run, I did what I could to keep up with the girl. At some point I sped up a bit to go tell her that I wasn't some odd creepy stalker, but as I increased my pace so did she and the last one mile she was flying with me on her heel, I spoke with her after wards telling her I hope I wasn't bothering her, but that she set a challenging pace for me and I enjoyed trying to keep up with her. She told me in return that she thought I wanted to steal the win from her on the last mile. I responded something like, not a chance, that would have been cheating!

But I finished 2nd of the 10k runners at 46 minutes which is a personal best for me.
At the turnaround point I chose to keep the VFFs on simply due to wanting to challenge myself with the pace being set. If I ditched the VFFs I knew I wouldn't be as fast since my feet still have a ways to go before they are race ready naked.