Another New Running PR, But Not What I Wanted!

On July 4th I travelled down to Jefferson City and ran the Firecracker Mile, a free one mile race put on by the Jefferson City Road Runners. I had read this was a “downhill mile” so I was thinking this was a great opportunity to try and go sub 5 for a mile. Turns out the downhill consisted of the first 1/4 which was sharply downhill to begin, had a 90 degree turn and leveled off for the final 100 yards of that first quarter, the rest of the mile was flat! I guess better than a track, or so I thought initially…

Having real no idea of what a fast miler looks like, I lined up for the start unsure if there was anyone else in the crowd of about 30 that would be trying to run sub 5 on the day (not that sub 5 for a mile is all that fast!) I had run about a mile for the warm up which probably wasn’t really enough. The horn sounded and we were off.

Turns out, no one else was apparantly trying to break 5 as I quickly found myself in the lead. Though when I passed the first 1/4 in 1:06 I realized maybe I had gone out a little too fast! Went through the next quarter in 1:14 so at the halfway point I was at 2:20 and was thinking I just about had the sub 5 wraped up…

The next quarter things really began to hurt especially towards the end of it and when I saw my average pace dropping fast I began to worry. 1:18, it was still within reach, all I needed was a 1:21 and I would do it! For the whole of the last quarter I could see the finish clock ticking down. With a hundred yards to go I still thought I could do it, but the numbers slowly ticked by as my legs got tighter and tighter. Eventually I crossed the finish as the clock read 5:02!

Turns out I had won the race by 32 seconds, but I would have been happier in second place if someone had been there to push me a little, had helped me break 5! On the trip home I somehow ended up betting a couple of friends that I could break 5 within the following two weeks, not sure what I was thinking!!

23:38:11 – Tony Rigdon