Summer' Sizzler 5K

I was very sad to hear that a member of the prostate cancer support group at Texas Health Presbyterian, Richard Beadle, passed away from prostate cancer on July 21, 2011. He was a native of Lafayette, Louisiana, which is only 20 miles from my home town. We volunteered together at the Dadfest race several times and also at the free prostate cancer screening events hosted by Presbyterian hospital. I always enjoyed talking to him at our monthly meetings. I will miss you very much my friend. You are  no longer in pain and now you're in God's hands. This week, I ran in the Summer' Sizzler 5K Run / Walk on Saturday July 30 2011 at River Legacy Park in Arlington, TX. The race benefited the Arlington Life Shelter (www. arlingtonlifeshelter . org), which is a compassionate rehabilitation facility for the homeless. Many canned food items were donated by runners. I took off a couple of weeks after running a 15K (9.3 miles) in the Too Hot To Handle Race and 7 weeks of training with the 301 training class at Run-On! in Dallas.  The Race Director was Jeph Abara, who hosts a race almost every month. You can check out his website, www. runningintheusa .com, where you can find race results and news. This race was started in front of Raccoon Run Pavilion, which was a different starting area than the one that we usually start at. The race sponsors were Muscle Milk, Honest Tea, Dr. Michael L. Hughlett D.C., and  pictures were taken by Celebrated Images.  I arrived early and ran my slow 1 mile warm up jog along the trail in the park. Then I stretched and waited to pick up my bib #. The race was to start at 8:00 AM, but didn't start until about 8:15. The  temperature was close to 90 degrees. As usual, I started on the 1st row. After the start, I took off at a fast pace after starting on the street in front of the pavilion. After a short distance, we started running on the paved trail around the park. I've run this course several times before, so I was familiar with the twists and turns.  I finished the 1st mile in 7:50. Then the heat started to get to me, and I slowed down a bit. I got to the turnaround  at about 1.6 miles into the race. At the 2nd  mile, my time was 16:15 (8:25 / mile pace). I tried to pick up my pace at about 2.5 miles.  I was running as fast as I could, but made the mistake of thinking the finish line was at it's usual place. Since we started at a different pavilion, the finish line was   a little farther passed the regular one. I still had to run further to get to the finish line.  My heart monitor said that I was running at more than 100% maximum, so I started to shut down a bit and ran slower. I dropped at least 1 minute off my pace to the finish line, and finished in the time of 25:22.  I placed 46 out of 156 total finishers, and 4th place out of 5 in my age group. I was proud to be awarded one of Jeph Abara's special Souls & Soles awards which Jeph gives out to those that put forth great effort. They had a drawing for prizes after the race, but I didn't win anything this time. Place    Bib #     Men      Overall    Time          Pace  4/5       1795     41/81      46/156    25:22      8:10  /mile I run to raise awareness for prostate cancer and to benefit my community. www.runningforacause.tumblr.com