Possum Ridge 5K

ORN: Five km in about 30:50. I'm unsure of my precise official time because I was preoccupied at the finish line. Once the official results are published this week, I'll know how well I did. And I do think I did pretty well, given the heat and the hills.

This race was a very well managed affair, given its size. It was second to last in a series of races held at state parks around Kentucky. I didn't participate in any but this one.

I guess there were about 100-150 racers of all shapes and sizes. The winner was a fellow who ran the thing in a revolting time of 16-something minutes. The winners in my age bracket were in the 21-minute range. If I had only run 9 minutes faster, I could have had a trophy!

The day was lovely, though it was warmer than I expected. The course was fairly straight with several low, easy hills. It was an out and back course, not especially difficult, with lovely scenes of woods and grass flanking the road.

I wanted to do better, myself, but a couple things confounded me. For one thing, I had trouble keeping my breathing under control in the first mile or so. I don't think that was anything health-related. I think I just had a lot on my mind. You see, the other thing was that I locked my keys in my car. I took a key off my key chain and tied it to my shoelaces, but it was for the other car. All my ID, my cell phone, and my water were in the car. Fortunately, there was a park ranger handy with a jimmy.

I'm not displeased with my time, but I felt like I could have done better. That's precisely the feeling I didn't want to have. I didn't want to be at the finish line feeling like I could have run another mile, and apart from the stifling heat, I feel like I could have. Oh well. Next time.