O what a fun weekend we had. Corey and myself headed off to Grand Rapids, MI Friday evening and when we got to the hotel I did what every guy does when checking in with another dude…I asked if it was the honey moon suite with the heart shaped hot tub. I also called “Big Spoon.”

A giggle and a smile later I was handed a room key and told to have a nice night. Upon opening the door to the nice room we noticed…Hmmm only one bed…again me restating “I called the big spoon.”

So back down to the front desk we went and I said to the lady “We were just kidding about that whole honey mooningspooning thing.” Well she turned a few shades of red and said “Well I wasn’t sure and I was afraid to ask.” It was pretty darn funny…Yes we got a room with two beds, I think I saw a bit of sadness in Corey’s eyes.

Off to dinner we went. About half way through dinner I asked the waitress if she would believe that Corey and Me were twins. Turns out she was thinking either brothers or twins…even thou I have dads blue eyes and Corey has mom’s brown eyes everything else looked the same…even our eyes once you get past the color. Once we both paid for dinner on separate bank cards with separate last names she felt kinda silly.

Was there something else that happened this weekend…o wait a race that’s right. Well it was a good and bad day for me. We went out hard, Boaz taking right to the lead with Corey and I side by side 3 paces behind.

Boaz hit the first mile at 4:36 and we followed close behind at 4:40. Mile two was mostly up hill as Boaz increased his lead and Corey and I realized that we were not alone.

We hit the second mile in 4:54 pace and I began to waver in the brisk hill climb. About 200meters into the 3rd mile Nick Stanko and Kris Koster edged past me. I though “this is ok, I could use a windshield before I kick them down.” Well being that Stanko knows I have a kick he decided to push hard and the group of three began to gap me as my legs began to protest the pace. One meter gap quickly became about 40-50 meter gap pretty quick. About 800meters to go the course leveled off and then began it’s decent down to the finish. I began to push harder and harder…I saw that Corey and gaped Stanko and Koster which caused them to slow down allowing me to move back on them. 400 meters from the finish line I was full tilt barreling down the hill closing on those two guys quickly.

I thought I was going to grab these guys at the line but the sad story of a kicker is too little too late, if only I started 10 meters earlier or the course was 10 meters longer. Sad but true.

And nobody was going to catch Boaz because he put on the crazy Kenyan face.

Boaz – 14:31
Corey – 14:39
Kris – 14:44
Nick – 14:44
Jordan – 14:45

The good news was that I got my fastest time in a 5K on the roads but the place is just not sitting well with me. We will see everyone in another week at The Martian 10K What I didn’t let everyone know is that I ran the whole race with my eyes closed. At least I got some pics. in the Michigan Rehab uniform GO RUNNING INSTITUTE!

Finally had a great race! On Friday we headed over to Grand Valley State University to run on the 300 meter indoor track, which is awesome looking. I knew I was in 8:10 shape…roughly and I was excited to see what I could do. For the past week all I could thunk about was this race. Not that this was a championship race or an indication of future success but I thunk it was more of seeing if I still hold true to my competitive edge and have the ability to push on when all systems are telling you to stop.

The race went out very hard. I think we might have hit the 400m in 63 then we slowed a little and came through the 800m around 2:07-8 which is still well under my slow personal best of 8:10. My mind played games on me letting me know I can’t run that fast but I also knew that if the lead pack broke me I would not reach my goal of sub 8:10. A few guys past me putting me back to 10th place but my coach was right there to assure me that I can beat that guy and retake the position on the back stretch, so I did. Eventually the lead pack pushed to hard and broke away from the rest of us. So now I was leading the back pack trying to maintain a competitive pace. With about 400m to go I began pushing harder and harder.

I wanted to catch back up to my training partner Corey. I flew around the last 200m at this point I was only racing the clock and I was willing my legs to keep moving. Eventually I crossed that finish line 6seconds behind the lead pack. They were 8:06 and I came in at 8:12. It was no PR but it was a good step in the right direction. Thanks for the great pictures Mitch Zost of me in my new Michigan Rehab. uniform.

So this weekend we did a little racing at EMU. I don’t think it was anything super fancy but more for getting in front of the crowd. I did a 1,000m, I was hoping it would have gone a little faster but after being boxed in for 400m then tossing in a couple surges (in other words RACING) my legs just ran out of juice at the end. So I finished 3rd with a 2:30. We did follow it up with a nice long run on Sunday. I did this same run 2 weeks ago and this time we were about 1m30s faster. Hope you all got out there and had a nice run on Sunday…I the temp was 6 but the sun was awesome!!