Oldest Mini Team BRAZO brings home the SILVER…

2007 Berbee Derby Awards - 10K
MALE AGE GROUP: 1 – 14

1 GERALD LUEBKE OREGON WI 45:26 7:19
2 ALEX MEYER STOUGHTON WI 50:07 8:04
3 IAN BUSH BUFFALO GROVE IL 50:57 8:12


Today, Oldest Mini Team BRAZO and myself ran in our 2nd annual Thanksgiving day Berbee Derby in Madison. The evening before the area got around 2-3 inches of snow, but most of that snow was off of the roads. We did have some of the run paths with a layer of ice in the middle of the trail.

The temps that morning were in the mid 20’s, so we got to the race about 15 minutes before the start and then sat in the car until about 5 minutes before in order to stay warm. We made our way to the start and heard from the announcer that the field today was 4000 runners in both the 10k and the 5k. This year, Oldest Mini Team BRAZO decided he’d run the 10k with Dad – his first 10k.

Our goal was to run even splits of 8 minute miles – that would give me my PR for the 10k. My PR coming into the race was 49:51 which I had run a few years back. We started off in the pack of runners and weaved our way through the slower runners and tried to keep our pace. We hit the first mile marker at just about exactly 8 minutes – right on pace. The next couple of miles went very smooth with both Oldest Mini Team BRAZO and myself not having much problems. We passed the 4 mile mark right on time – a bit below 32 minutes.

At this point Oldest Mini Team BRAZO was having problems with his calf’s tightening up, so he decided to slow the pace just a bit. I continued on at the 8 minute mile pace and made it to mile 5 at again right on pace at 40 minutes. About 4.5 miles, my left hamstring started to tighten up and give me problems. I was a bit worried that this would slow me down but after a bit, I noticed that my heart rate was 180+ so any slowing down would have nothing to do with my hamstring.

I passed mile 5 and we hit a stretch of the race that you pass the runners behind you – I turned the corner and ran just a bit and there was Oldest Mini Team BRAZO not too far behind me. That was AWESOME, I had figured he might have to really slow the pace with his calf’s, plus he no longer had me pacing him.

I get to the last hill before the downhill finish and I’m at the end of my rope. I do everything in my power to keep that 8 minute mile pace going even though my body said to SLOW DOWN. I just kept telling myself that I had my PR if I just kept running hard and I worked so hard during the first 5 miles to give up at this point.

I ran hard through the finish and ended up with a 49:08 (7:55 miles) – which was 43 seconds faster than ever before. I waited in the finish chute and about a minute later Oldest Mini Team BRAZO came running through – he had a GREAT 10k run with a time of 50:07 (8:04 miles) and a 2nd PLACE FINISH in his age group!!!!

Great day…