During the season, I received an invite from OC to run the St. Monica 5k. On Saturday the event finally came along. I meet up with the O’Connor brothers, and we were joined by Pribe. We got in a little warm-up with a jog, stretching, and drills. The race was a weird time: OC’s career is over and he is just running every once in a while, Matt was coming off his rest period and just getting into his summer training, and I was using it as my race effort before starting my rest period.
The race went well and was a lot of fun. The OC’s and I took it out in the lead and were having a little chat during the first half mile or so. Matt fell off here. OC hung on to me until the hill at the start of the final mile. The three of us swept the 19 & under division. I was 3rd overall in 18:30, OC followed behind me in 18:45, and Matt finished 5th in 19:15 out-kicking an old guy the last 100 meters. It was an out-and-back course on Coeur de Ville and through a neighborhood with lots of hills and a challenging uphill finish.
There were some unique elements with the small race that made fun. First, I finally got the highly sought after St. Monica 5k shirt. Second, there was personal encouragement at the end of the race over the sound system for each runner courtesy of Josh’s dad. You won’t find that in many races. Third, the pace car was a police car. It was as awesome as it sounds. Fourth, there was Powerade when you finished. And finally, there were attendance prizes. You won’t find these awesome things at many other races.
As this picture shows, we dressed to impressed: high socks, flags shorts, boss shirts. It didn’t matter how we ran cause we looked great, and that’s what’s important.
