Run With The Saints 5K

A near-frosting front blew through town recently, and before next weekend's half I thought it might be a good idea to have a "race rehearsal" in cool/cold conditions. So this morning I dropped in on an event I've never done before, the Run With The Saints 5K at John Paul II Catholic School right here in the upper Buffalo Bayou neighborhood.

For the first time since the end of the Summer of Fire, I pulled a C9 shirt from the long-sleeved side of the closet and when I arrived at the school, I literally warmed up for a mile with a jacket on. By gun time things were aligned perfectly -- I was warmed up, the temps hung in the mid-40s and there was plenty of residential shade and no wind on this flat course.

After the first mile of weaving through walkers and telling half a dozen kids about their untied shoes, I was able to settle in with my breathing and let the legs go on auto-pilot. I let my mind wander to thoughts of oven-warmed brownies in mile two and visualizations of a banana split with mango ice cream in mile three.

When I reached the finish line, I noticed we had been tricked! The entrance to the finish chute was the exit driveway to the parking lot, with a "DO NOT ENTER" painted on the pavement. We'll never be saints if we're flagrantly disobedient, right?

But hey, I've got my first sub-thirty 5K since 2009 and it feels like a thin slice of heaven.

The splits:

• Mile 1: 9:39
• Mile 2: 9:37
• Mile 3: 9:36
• Last .1: 0:49

5K elapsed time: 29:39 per Garmin Forerunner 205