4 on the 4th

Hello to all my fellow runners!

So,another race has come and gone. This past Saturday (The 4th of July) I arose by myself without any other members of the Central Florida 5Klub to participate with me in the God & Country Day Freedom Run 4 Miler. This is an annual event held in Ocala, FL to support the Marion County Veteran's Memorial Park. I arrived at the race 45 minutes prior to the start of the event and got my bib number (133), T-Shirt, and SWAG bag. I pinned my number onto my shirt and brought my bag and shirt back to my car. After lots of walking around and a short warm up run I was ready for the race to begin.

The race had perfectly blue skies and the temperature was great. The humidity was pretty high, but then again, this is FLORIDA. I passed by mile marker 1 in a time of 7:43 and was feeling great. After a small loop I finished the 2nd mile in a time of 7:47 and was still feeling pretty good. Shortly after the 2 mile mark I was getting a little tired and ran up to the only water station on the course. I was pretty thirsty at this point so I actually walked the water station to make sure that I got as much water in me as possible. I finished the 3rd mile in a time of 8:09 - A little slow, but not to bad considering that I had walked through the aid station. A little after mile marker 3, we passed by a guy that every single runner in the race LOVED. This guy was nicely standing outside of his house at the edge of the road where he had a hose that he put the water nozzle onto MIST and he refreshed everyone superbly with a wonderful misting that completely rejuvenated me. With about a quarter mile to go in the race, there was a person there handing out a small flag to all of the runners. I crossed the finish line shortly after with a smile on my face and a flag in my hand as my 4th and final mile was my fastest of the entire race which i completed in 7:28 to make my overall finishing time 31:07. This time put me in 55th place overall and 6th in my age group. I am not positive on the number of total runners as the results are yet to be posted online. My guess would be roughly somewhere from 200-300 runners. I did run into a couple of people that ran in the event that I had not seen for a number of years and it was nice to get to catch up with them.

At the awards presentation they actually were giving out some prizes by randomly drawing race bib numbers from people that ran in the event. I was shocked to find out that I actually had a little luck run my way and I, Mr. Never Wins ANYTHING, actually had my number drawn and I won a 3x5 American Flag complete with the mounting kit. I was happy to get this as I missed winning an age group award my just over 1 minute.

I then came home and spent a nice day with my family as we just relaxed and enjoyed the holiday.

I will eventually list the official results on a future posting assuming that they are ever posted online (which I assume they will be as prior runnings of this same race have been).

I do have a 5K race planned for this coming Saturday in Inverness, FL which is F-R-E-E FREE ---- AND you still get a t-shirt.

Well, I will keep you all updated.

Til Next Time

RESULTS ARE NOW POSTED

I got 55th out of 266 (top 20%) and 6th in my age group out of 13. Also I was the 46th place Male (meaning only 9 women finished ahead of me)

To see the official results click here.