On July 4, my dad and I ran the Freedom Fun Run 8k in St. Peter. My goal was to get my time under 22:30, which is 6:30 per mile pace. I crossed the finish in 21:50; about 6:24 pace.

My dad wanted to run faster than 9:30 per mile. He finished with a pace right around 9:04 per mile. We were both pleased with our accomplishments.

To top it off I received a nice medal for placing second in my 30-39 age division. Honestly, for the last few races I’ve run, my age division hasn’t been particularly fast. I find my self finishing behind at least three or four runners in the 40-49 age division.

It seems men in the 40-49 division wake up and realize they’re not going to be young forever so they get out an run races. The men in the 30-39 age division don’t quite have that sense of urgency yet. I’m guessing it won’t be as easy for me to place when I turn forty.

My splits for this race were as follows: 1st Mile – 6:18.8, 2nd Mile – 6:37.7, 3rd Mile 6:32.4, 4th Mile – 6:36.1, and 5th Mile – 5:45.7. They’re all over the place, but I attribute that to the fact that the course was not flat. Instead, there was a steady incline throughout with a steep drop at the end.

I’d love to run this race again next year and see how I do. Maybe I can get closer to 6:15 pace through a consistent combination of longer endurance runs and shorter speed workouts. Yesterday I ran a very slow 9 miles just to get my mind prepared for a little more mileage. I’ll be running a couple half-marathons later in the summer.