The Arthritis 5K Run/Walk was held at Kamper Park on Saturday May 13 along a predominantly flat course (except the beginning!). Around 50-60 fellows gathered in the park to run or walk the distance. We started out at 8:00am in warm sunny weather with a light wind. When the gun went off Jim Coll, Richie Sumrall, Kili Garcia, John Oliveri and four other runners took the lead. The 8 guys stayed in the front for nearly the first 1/3-mile controlling the pace; then, an attack by Coll through the climb, and counter-attacks thinned out the group over the next two miles. Sumrall and Oliveri kept up with the leader, while Garcia realized he was running too fast before ultimately riding with the rest of the pack. Veterans Ulery and Wedgeworth began accelerating, and I quickly got tired. I took a break and had a lovely ride midway through mile two being closely followed by Ashley Bailey and Kili Garcia. With about one mile to go, Ashley attacked and quickly broke off the front of our strongly chasing pace line, gaining an unbelievable amount of time very quickly. Chasing close behind was Vicky Copeland, who also picked up the pace and passed us very easily. Soon I realized I had no chance of catching the two gazelles, so I gave up, and just tried to keep running to the end. Kili Garcia stayed close behind and finished a couple of seconds later. Since he had being training hard for his first marathon and running every day more than 5 miles, he had a good performance in the Kamper run.

At the end of the race Jim Coll had more legs for the sprint and beat Richie Sumrall who came second and won the Masters overall title. John Oliveri finished third not far away from Coll and Sumrall and placed first in the 30-39 age bracket. Steve Ulery set the "Fastest-Non-Colombian-Non-Mississippian-Veteran-Sprinter-Living-In-Hattiesburg" record for any 5K Kamper Park race by beating Phillip Wedgeworth and winning the Grand Master title. The Alzheimer does not let me remember the name of the girl who claimed the female title at this moment. Hopefully, the official results will come soon to record her name and give credit to her great performance. Second overall was Vicky Copeland who also got the Masters title. Ashley came close in third place and won her age group.

I finished in a little more than 25 minutes in a very disappointing appearance and got a PWWR, Personal Worst of the Worst Record, for the distance in the year 2006. I was lucky that not many people in my category came to the race, so the time was good enough to get a trophy for placing second in the 40-49 age group. Although I cannot make a good excuse for my weak performance, it can be explained by the combination of the following facts (I am not making up anything! J ) à

Anyway, as I said before, I am not making up any excuse! Everything is true (yeah, sure!).