Ran the Chris Lacinak Scholarship Fund Shamrock 5K This Morning

For the previous three years on the Saturday of St. Patrick's Day weekend I ran in the Run for Haven 10K race in Tioga, just on the western outskirts of Gainesville.  After they decided to move their race to the fall, I switched over to the "other" St. Patrick's weekend race: the Chris Lacinak Scholarship Fund Shamrock 5K.  Held in northeastern Gainesville, the race is put on annually to honor Chris Lacinak, a St. Patrick's Interparish Catholic School alumnus who passed away in 2012 at the age of 19 and to contribute to the fund bearing his name.  It begins across NE 16th Avenue from the church in Northeast Park, with the course taking runners south through the Duck Pond area, winding up and down various roads until it returns to the park for the finish.  The racetime (9 am) weather was 55 degrees with a heavy 97 % humidity.  I enjoyed the positive spirit of all participating in this worthy event...but that humidity was awful.  Fortunately, the cooler temperature and the shorter length of this race made it much more bearable than my difficult half-marathon experience last month among similarly muggy conditions.  Plus, I think that my daily gym sessions after work with the elliptical cross-trainer put me in better shape...

Planning to avoid pushing myself too hard, I regarded the race as a training run, determined to stick with a reasonable, but not too fast, pace...and to avoid tripping and falling over obstacles in the road.  I finished with a time of 29:17 at a mile pace of 9:27...you can get all the results through the following link to Start 2 Finish Race Management.