Hump Day Challenge...The End

The season finale of another Club South Runners Hump Day 2-Mile Challenge was a success. I purchased my new kicks before my 5-mile warm up and absolutely loved them.

I will try on 20 pairs of shoes before the perfect fit is achieved. Its almost like the line in Transformers (the movie) where Bernie Mac says" A driver doesn't choose the car, the car chooses the driver." For me...the shoe chooses the runner, not the runner choosing the shoe. So what shoe was it?

The Nike Skylon 11, seen below. Its one of Nike's newer shoes and I was surprised by how well it fit. Normally, Nike and I do not get along, but, as I said earlier, the shoe chooses the runner!

After getting the shoes, we did a good 5-mile run with the Varsity Sports group and then jetted over to the final Hump Day Challenge. The race was stacked, tons of ex-collegiate runners, high school runners, and just plain fast guys. I went out fast, but conservative and pushed the second mile hard. I set a new PR for this racing series, which is nice. Placed second in the 'old mans' division. The Varsity Sports group represented well in most categories with two overall division winners and three 2nd place age group finishers.

In another note, in Hoganistan and I's absence, the Humpday All Stars pulled out another win...we officially have a winning streak now.

Hump Day Challenge #2

Today was the second race of "The Rouge's" hump day challenge running series. I did the Varsity Sports easy 5 again, similar to two week ago and wasn't really feeling like racing, but alas, this weeks race was free to Club South Runners members. So, I said what the heck and decided to head over and see how it would go. The honey bun I ate at 4 that afternoon was not very happy with me at the moment...oh well

I decided that, unlike two weeks ago, I would take this race with a laid back start followed by a faster second mile. This is called running negative splits. I ran the same time as 2 weeks ago and it felt so much easier, even with a faster second mile. Placed a little worse probably, but there are no awards, so no biggie there.

Run...Motor...Run

Varsity Hump Day Fun
The summer here in "The Rouge" brings out the heat, humidity, and the Hump Day Challenge series. Its a small 2-mile race series that takes place throughout "The Rouge" every other Wednesday night. tonight was the first race of the season!
First though, I did a nice light easy 5-mile run with the Varsity Sports group which was a lot of fun. I love this group as it has a true southern charm that is hard to describe. Its one of the few things I TRULY enjoy down here.

After the 5 mile run (which was a new course...yikes!) I had to motor on over to the Jefferson Hwy BREC park to make registration. Luckily I was already dressed to run so no worries there. Paid my bucks (5 to be exact) and then headed to the starting line, which I just barely made. Lined up and decided to start out relatively fast for this race and see where the chips fall.

Passed through the first mile in a decent 5:38 but I was rather winded at this point and many people started to pass me up. One dude in particular would surge then die, surge then die, surge then die. Almost made me dizzy at the number of times I passed him. With about a half mile to go I passed him for good and finally started to feel ok and was able to pick up the pass. Finished 12th overall and ran 11:37, which was faster than any of the times I ran last year at these races. Happy? Sort of...Need to train more? For sure!