Ran Today's Depot Parkrun 5K Here in Gainesville

This Saturday morning I once again arose before six...then I promptly went back to bed with the alarm set at 6:05.  Sure, I could have slept through today's Depot Parkrun 5K but that would have broken with this constructive personal habitual routine.  So I drove on down to Depot Park, a few blocks south of downtown Gainesville, to try my hand once again at their little multi-looping race course.  Before it started, I was uncertain whether I'd run it or speed-walk, seeing that the day before I had exerted myself a bit running the three-mile Melon Run at Westside Park.  But while standing there at the countdown to the "start" signal I made my decision: run that sucker!  The temperature/humidity combination was typical for North Florida summer mornings: 74 degrees at 98%...not conducive for setting any personal bests today.  And so that's how I handled the run, trying hard enough to finish below 30 minutes while not worrying about particulars.  I never was able to settle into a good running groove, but at the same time...compared to other runners who were clearly running out of gas early on...I managed to keep up a steady pace and even speed up a bit at the end in spite of struggling in my mind to continue on and resist the almost overwhelming temptation to just walk the rest of the way to the finish line.  As it was, I ran well enough to finish at 29:25...hooray!  I remember how, for years since I began doing the Depot Parkrun in 2019, breaking 30 minutes seemed an impossible dream.  But since I managed to cross over that threshold, the opposite has happened: same 30 minutes, but now it's a goal to consistently avoid finishing slower than. Of course, when I'm speed-walking, I have a different standard.  You can view today's results by clicking HERE. I noticed a few of the runners from yesterday's Melon Run race were present at today's event...