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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Summer Breeze Course Preview

Distance: 7.17 mi
Time: 01:00:29 - 8:26 ppm
Running Buddy

As of this morning I had not yet decided what, if any, my racing plans would be for this weekend. The Summer Breeze 5k near Freedom Park is the latest in the GPX series, but there's also a race at McAlpine (cue worship music) on Saturday. The pros for McAlpine are as follows: my favorite course and a true 5k distance, a chance to gauge improvement on a course I raced five weeks ago, and a chance to garner top-5 placing and the prize money that goes with it. The cons are the 9 a.m. start (hot!) and the lack of competition, which could make it difficult to really run my best.

I met up with Anne Marie early this morning and we set off down Park Road at 6 a.m. sharp to run the Summer Breeze course. If McAlpine is my favorite place to run then the Freedom Park/Booty Loop area is definitely my second-favorite, and that's where we found ourselves. The course starts out somewhat hilly, goes down East Blvd. past the park entrance, and then out on the Booty Loop for a bit. The last mile, however, is downhill and fast, and the race finishes around the lake at the park - awesome!

I waffled for a good bit later in the day in between work and running errands, but as of 2:30 p.m. I have registered for Summer Breeze. The allure of finishing at Freedom Park and being able to race with my friends was too much to pass up. Plus, the women will be racing separately in this one, which will greatly thin out the pack at the start in addition to giving us all the rare opportunity to cheer on our friends. We'll see what happens.

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