Matthews Bluegrass Festival and Chili Cook-Off

I just ran my first 5k in over 10 years. I finished with a time of 24:18 which puts me in 28th place overall (21st overall in the men's group). Within my age group (30-39) I was 5th. Not good enough for a ribbon, but good enough that I was happy with the effort. My pace was 7:51 min/mile. I definitely wanted to be under 8, but I was hoping to be a little closer to 7 even (or even under 7). I want to enter races about once or twice a month because it gives me a good monthly goal and feeds my competitive side. I now want to enter the Runway 5k in Charlotte this weekend. This race will take place on the taxi-ways at Charlotte-Douglas Airport. You can watch planes take-off while you run. How cool is that? It is also much bigger than the race I ran this morning. This morning's field size was around 200-300 runners. The Runway 5k already has 933 runners pre-registered and is expected to reach 2000. Pretty cool. Also, the race this morning was the first time I was "chipped". They used rfid tags that you strap to your shoe laces that automatically record your time as you cross the finish. Altogether, I am really enjoying running again. I've been running about 3.6 miles during my lunch break and occasionally biking to work (3.8 miles each way) as well. Longer term, I am hoping to get my 5k time under 20 minutes again. Watch my work-out tracker (below-right) to see if I get there.