February 5k: Gasparilla Distance Classic
by jfargen on Mar.18, 2014, under Uncategorized
The Gasparilla Distance Classic is one of the largest and oldest races in the Tampa Bay Area. I ran it back in high school and for nostalgias sake wanted thought it appropriate to run the race again 20 years later. Oh how times have changed, besides being at least 80 pounds heavier than in high school, my overall time was 34:17 (20 seconds better than the I Will Inspire 5k in January), still it was approximately 10 minutes slower then the time I ran the race in high school.
This race is crowded, I ran in the fast race, still I’m pretty slow so I was about 2/3 of the way back, around the 11 minute mile pace runner. You are almost body to body with the other runners, especially in the beginning, while running in the crowd people will just give up and start walking a lot of them didn’t even have the decency to move out of the way out of the main body of the group. This causes your pace to go up and down constantly, it probably slowed me down by a minute overall. Besides the crowds and rude people it was very muggy that day, out on the Bayshore, your sweat just stuck to you and you were completely drenched. I finished right behind the 11 minute mile pace runner, this time I did improve my time over the January 5k: I Will Inspire. Lets see what we can do in March.
Here is a link to the Gasparilla results.
