G5Kizzy

The event of the summer, Guerrilla 5K 3 was held on Sunday morning in Center City Philadelphia. You may have heard all about it on the National News yesterday evening but I'll give you a personal perspective.

It was my second time running the event which had moved from the pastoral fields around Montgomery Hall to the concrete confines of Center City Philadelphia in it's third year. It was hot, real summertime hot, when the humidity is up and the temps are in the low 80's by 9:00 am. I had built up a sweat just walking the several blocks from my car to the start on the North Side of City Hall.

The race was huge and Ian had to move onto a step so his instructions could reach across the throng. It was easy, get from the start to the corner of Front and Spruce and back. If we took the grid of streets it was 5K, if we cut through parks, garages, national landmarks, people houses, underground, it could be as short as 2.8453 miles.

The only shortcut that stuck out in my mind was Washington Square, which you could take at an angle across a city block, I aimed for that as the gun went off. Juniper to Walnut, Washington Square, through the fountain, 4th street, Spruce to Front. I was alone just after the start but had been joined by Stevus and Seebo by the time we reached Washington square and after turning around I decided to just follow Seebo back to City Hall. He was the fastest of the group and if I could stick with him I could count on a date for the finish in first/second place.

My planned worked perfectly, I stayed within 10 feet of Seebo who wasn't killing himself to pull away and as we approached the finish we joined hands in true G5K fashion and crossed the line. 3 miles in 18 minutes.

On serious note, I was happy with the time. I had run over 14 miles the day before and I wasn't killing myself with the pace during the race and still ran 6:00 minute miles. It felt kind of tempoish despite the heat.

I have to catch up on the rest of the weekend as well.

Friday: pm 1000 M in the pool

Saturday: 14.5 miles. 8.5 with group and 6 on my own through Fairmount Park. I felt good until the very end where I think heat was catching up with me and I developed some cramping in my stomach.

43 miles for the week and twice in the swimming pool. I'll take it.