2008 Scholar's Run 5k Race Report

When it comes to the History of Terry’s Running, the Scholar’s Run 5k is the last race that I have done every year since 1998 (when I officially became a Runner). There have been births, deaths, pulled hamstrings, weddings, etc, but yet in the later part of August, I have been able to make it to the starting line on the Maryville College campus for the Scholar’s Run

The Scholar’s Run is part of the Ruby Tuesday’s Triple Crown of Running, and that’s the restaurant Ruby Tuesday, their headquarters is in Maryville. And having such a great sponsor is great for the runners because in the Goody Bags/Race Packets they always have good stuff. This year it was a sports bottle… I thought I would hate it, but I LOVE it. It’s made from hard plastic so I can squeeze it, so I have to use vacuum action to get liquid out, so I get a small amount each drink time and so the drink lasts a long time.

Anyway, this year’s race, as in years past, is the Fall debut race for me. I don’t expect a whole lot from my race time, but I give it a good effort to “kick off” the fall training season. This was also the first race in 2006 that I made a podcast from my running. Oh, and this year, this was the debut race for ASD Athletes!

I am going not going to go into great detail on every aspect of the race. It wasn’t my fastest race but it was MUCH better than the Fireball 5k race. And even though I wasn’t really trained for the race, and that I have been running for sometime now, the thought of running this 5k race still got me excited. I went from just wanting to finish the race, to making it into a speed workout, to actually thinking about race strategy and finally to running it with the intent of attacking the course (lots of hills) and making a good workout of the event and if by the Mile 1 split, I was doing well, I would actually “race” the race.

My Split times for the Scholar’s Run were

Mile 1 & 2: (I seem to have misplaced my times – my new watch isn’t that high tech)
Finish 24:58
average pace: 8:04

This finishing time was good enough to put me in the Top Half of Finishers 103 out of 262, but in my Age Group, I was forced back to 16th (out of 26)! The first top 7 were faster than my PR and the top 11 in my age group were faster than the Terry Anticipated Time of 23:35.

Although I wasn’t all that excited at the 24:58, I did leave everything out on the course and so I couldn’t have really asked for more. So that gives me an idea of my base race pace and from there I can expand on my training for the two marathons this fall.

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