In what was my first run in 2 1/2 weeks, I race the inaugural St. Patrick's Day race in Fair Lawn this morning. The race was put on by the great folks at RaceFaster. RaceFaster is a set of training professionals for runners, triathletes, youth runners, as well as having a store front and putting on a handful of races. For a 1st year race, I was pleased. It was affordable, featured a few sponsors the morning of, and marked the course well. The course was the same as another race run, the Fair Lawn 1st Day 5K I have done.

I have been on the shelf for the last 2 1/2 weeks with a nasty, lingering sinus infection. I was 3 days into a great week, 20 miles in feeling good, when I woke up broken and feeling like garbage back on March 1st.

I was supposed to run a race last weekend in Hillsdale, NJ, but I felt horrible still and it was on 15 degrees when I woke up that day. All this week, I was slowly getting better with the medicine I was on. Finally, I felt really back to normal on Friday.

Toeing the line this morning in a breezy, cold 30ish degree weather, I was really not sure where I would be at the end of the race. I alway try to give whatever I have, and I did that, but before the race, I wasn't sure what that entailed. Listening to a couple runner dudes at the start, I overheard one guy say he was going to run around 6:20ish pace. His buddy said he just wanted to be under 21 minutes. I was happy to hear those two because I figured if they held their end of the bargain, I would like to use them to finish up somewhere in the middle, around 20 minutes.

As my race began, I was about 20 feet behind the dude that wanted to run 6:20's and for the first mile, I was even with the other due that wanted to go sub 21 minutes. I didn't mid that, however, as I knew he was running a little faster than he had talked about; we hit mile one in 6:25.

After that, dude 2 wised up and dropped off a bit as I held pace. I hit mile 2 in a solid split of 6:29, happy to keep similar pace. I had built a little lead on slower dude, and the faster dude had built a little bit more on me moving through mile 3.

The final 1.1 miles was a little slower, but I could not be happier. After having no idea what I could do after being sick and off for 2 1/2 weeks, I rolled in at 20:10. I finished the race in 7th place overall, and 1st in my age group.