Cool Night Classic

Felt sluggish the entire day Wednesday so it took what seemed like a mammoth effort the walk the few blocks from work to the Riverside Centre to meet up with Clairie and check my bag in for the annual Cool Night Classic ... or Nerd Night Classic as one of my workmates called it :-)

The plan was to take the 5.13k easy. There were four starts - fast runners, other runners, brisk walkers, other walkers. All the runners were bundled together at the start, with just a strip of plastic tape separating the two groups. We were at the front of the second group but cheekily slipped under the tape it to be in the back line of the fast runners.

The gun went and we were off. It was pretty crowded out there, and at least the first half was spent either dodging people or just slowing down as you couldn't pass them on the narrow pathways.

I suppose we took the first half easy, had no choice really, but then the excitement took over and we revved it up a bit after that. Also there were people we just had to pass! I told Clairie it was okay if she wanted to take off but she kindly ran beside me or just in front the whole way, even giving up her usual sprint finish. Crossed the line in 23:43, which was a little faster than the 25 minutes I had in mind.

We realised later we should have stayed at the front of the second pack, it started three minutes after the first one. Imagine the nice clear run we would have had for at least the first couple of kms. Idiots!