This evening was another of the Greenville Corporate races, the Swamp Rabbit 5k. I think it was my first evening race since high school. It's a huge 5k- 4000 entrants this year. Showed up early with my family, who enjoyed the bouncy castles, free food, and music. I warmed up by running the course with Jim and Barry, plus a bit. 75 deg at the start, which I guess is much better than the very humid 85 from last year. The course is very hilly- almost 300 ft climbing, most in the last 2 miles. The race started late. There were a ton of high schoolers at the front, but I started fast enough to stay ahead of them (only 2 guys sprinted out, and they were walking by .5 mile). First mile is very gradual downhill and was a 5:13. I was in 3rd, right behind my coworker Jim and someone I didn't know. Mile 2 starts with a big downhill, then steep up, another down, then a 3/4 mile uphill. I quickly found that my high mileage left my legs sluggish on the ups, where the top 2 guys steadily pulled away. I held my own on the downs. Mile 2 was 5:33, and I was ~10 seconds behind the guys, with no one in sight behind me. Mile 3 was very nice, running down a shaded bike path, but I couldn't close any distance. 6:09 for the 1.1, with a final time of 16:55. Mystery man won in ~16:30, Jim was about 10 second back. Decent race for me- I never got excited for this race and have felt worn out this week, so I ran about as expected. I was breathing hard right from the start, but didn't really die off. Can't complain about a 3rd place finish in a race of 4000. And like Jim says, if I add some real speedwork and actually reduced mileage, I'd have a great 5k. But, these aren't my focus races, although I'll try to PR in the 100x5k in 2 weeks (solo run on the track- should be fun). Lots of free food and talking at the finish, while the kids played for 2 more hours. Now bedtime, then a trail run tomorrow. 
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