I wanted to pass the guy wearing jeans

I was speaking this past weekend at a conference and thought it was an awesome coincidence that they had a 5K scheduled for the same morning I was to speak.  The race was at 9:00 AM and my presentation was at 11:00 so I thought it would fit great.

From my last post, you know I forgot my shoes, but other than that I was prepared.  I thought it was going to be cold and so had planned on a long sleeve shirt, however it was muggy and sweaty during warm-up so I just wore my newest, proudest, race T which was my Boise 70.3 shirt.

It was a small race of maybe 40 people and it was mostly women.  Women that were planning on walking.  I'm 39 yrs old and there was only one guy that looked my age.  He was 25 and was with his wife and mother-in-law.  The ladies were in race gear and he was in jeans and spent most of the pre-race working on his music.  The other guys there were older and were in deep conversations which I think they planned on continuing during their relaxing walk.

The good news is that I didn't have much threat in winning my age group.  The bad news was the race was starting late and I had to shower, pack out of the hotel and be ready to speak.  The start kept getting pushed back.  I also knew that I was going to really have a challenge to break 20 minutes given that the race was cross county on a grass/moss/muck runway.  My warm-up mile felt like I was running on jelly and it was slow.

So the gun (shout) when off and I took off.  I was surprised by how many people were running near me.  I was most surprised that Mr. Jeans was easily pulling away.  I was running about a 6:15 mile and he just pulled away.  My mind started racing, how to I explain that me, my Ironman lost a 5K to Mr. Levi's? 

So I turning things up a bit and chased after him.  I finally caught him after about 1/2 a mile and made the slow pass.  I never looked back and just kept going hoping that he didn't get a second wind.  The good news about this course is that it was loops on a runway so I could see the other runners.  I soon discovered that Mr. Jeans decided to mosey rather than run for the rest of the race.

It was a tough run and it was fun to be cheered on by all the runners.  I stopped the clock at 20:50, was awarded my medal right on the spot since they new I had to leave, we took a couple pictures and we were off. 

I wonder if I would have chased him down if he had been wearing an Ironman shirt rather than jeans?  I wonder whether my ego serves or hinders me during races?  I wonder if I would be faster wearing jeans?