Firecracker 5K

I was happy to start off this holiday (the 104th anniversary of Dad's birth) by running the Firecracker 5K in downtown Ann Arbor. Conditions were splendid - 70 degrees, so it was warm but not hot, and with broken overcast. It was a course that did a one-mile loop from the starting line and then back to it, at which point Michelle saw me and got a picture; then there was a larger second loop that included a very special passage. In the latter part of it, we crossed the Diag, the hallowed central portion of the University of Michigan campus, replete with a metal block M sunk into the ground. As I crossed beside it (careful not to step ON it) I looked at my watch and quickly calculated that perhaps I could finish in under 33 minutes, which would have easily broken an 11-minute pace ... pretty good for me under recent conditions. But, alas! when I crossed the finish line my watch showed 34:08 (a pace of 11:00 even). Still, though, I'm glad to have done it, and improved somewhat on the 5K I ran in Lansing back on May 14 (34:34), and greatly over the 5K I ran at St. Olaf on June 4 (in a miserable 36:56).