First 15K, First Prince George's County Race of the Year, WAHOOOO!!!!!

The D.C. Road Runners helped me out a great deal this evening (Sunday, September 2nd, 2007) by putting on the 49th Annual Larry Noel Greenbelt Classic 15K and 3K in Greenbelt, Maryland. Greenbelt, Maryland is in Prince George's County, so as of this evening I have completed a running event in Prince George's County this year, YESSSSS!!!! I'm really happy about this. I know that Prince George's (we typically call it "P.G. County" for short) is not too far from me, yet earlier in the year I could not make it to an event because of other plans or I just did not know of any that were going on!
Now I only have Calvert County, Maryland left to find and participate in a running event in. I know that there are several coming up in that county, most of them through the Chesapeake Bay Running Club (http://www.cbrcmd.org). As a matter of fact, there are one or two 5K races comin' up this month in Calvert Count, so I'm hopin' things work out so I can make it to participate in it to finish out my goal. I think it's cool that the last county in Maryland that I have not run in this year is one that I have not run in in my life. I do not even think I have run a training run there. Some of these counties I have run in this year I had never even run or raced in before, so it has definitely opened my eyes to a lot of neat events that go on and the folks that participate in them.
Tonight's 15K (approximately 9.3 miles) was the first time I had run that distance (I have run longer before and some of my 15K splits were faster than what I ran). I thought I ran all right considering I went out pretty conservatively and was cramping up ever now and then throughout the race (especially comin' up to the 10K mark). Plus, I was still tired from yesterday morning's 10K in Somerset County, Maryland (the 28th Annual Mike Sterling 10K in Crisfield) where I was hurting. I was glad that my legs did not really lose feeling and that my right foot and/or knee did not hurt that much (I don't think my right foot was giving me much trouble until maybe I felt a little tension in going down a gradual hill towards teh end, bt I don't think it hurt as much as yesterday morning).
I went through the first mile in about 7:01 and from there picked it up pretty decently well into the middle of the race. Here are my splits that I recall:

1 mile: 7:01
2 kilometers (2K): 8:38
3K: 12:44
4K: 17:18ish
5K: 21:37ish
6K: 26:14ish
7K: 30:33ish
8K: 34:55/34:56ish
10K: 43:50ish
11K: 48:25ish (I started to feel better a little before here and pick it up a bit.
12K: 52:50ish I think
14K: Upper 1:02's I think
15K Finish: 1:06:42/1:06:43

I had originally planned to try and run the first 5K in 22 minutes-and-some-odd-seconds, then take that split down about another minute in the second 5K, and then the third 5K split down about another minute. I did not run exactly as planned, but I still did decent and was glad that towards the end I started feeling stronger and I thought I had a nice kick at the end on the shaded bike paths (at that point I had to remove my sunglasses and hold them before I started my kick towards the end, because it was so shaded and the sun was goin' down). I'm glad that I managed to get 2nd in my age group (something I did not think would ahappen considering my approach to this race was not that aggressive). I don't know where I placed overall, but I suspect I may have been close to the top-ten, hopefully the results get posted in good time and I can find that out.
Thank you for reading, I am so glad I made more progress on this endeavor for the first time in about a month-and-a-half or so since July 14, when I ran the Run for the Pie 10K in Frederick (Frederick County), Maryland. P.G. County and Calvert County did not seem to have many running events over the summer and when they did, I seemed to have other things goin' on or I just did not know about them.
Well, I'm gonna go eat a late dinner, get a little ice on, and then get some shuteye for the 5K in Eldersburg (Carroll County), Maryland tomorrow morning, and it's called the Labor Day Rogue Race 5K. It is put on by the Eldersburg Rogue Runners club and it is a hilly loop-sorta course that goes through neighborhoods and starts and ends in front of Liberty High School. Lookin' forward to it. Maybe if I feel really good, I can run faster than 19:59, which I ran there last year! We'll see, I'm not gona push it all that hard as I've run about 25 kilometers (about 15.5 miles) in races in the past coupla days.
Thank you again for all of your reading and support once again, I am grateful for how far the Good Lord has brought me and for all of you being there for me, whether we have just met or throughouta good portion of these endeavors. I hope you all have a nice weekend and a happy Labor Day :)