08/15: Life Without Limits 5K

I ran this race, I don’t even know what it’s called - Larger than Life 5K, Lust for Life 5K, something like that. Okay - it’s the Life Without Limits 5K (so that's where the Elvis Run went!); I may not have the name of the race sitting on the tip of my tongue but I do know where to look it up. It’s a pretty large race which makes its anonymity strange (until you find out it used to be the Elvis Run), but then again it is the middle of summer and we are in Texas; it’s not like it’s strangled by competition. It is essentially the Katy Trail 5K only in August instead of May, on Saturday instead of Thursday, in the morning instead of the evening, and with much less postrace food. In other words, they basically just have the course in common.

Which isn’t all that surprising as it’s becoming one of the most popular courses in Dallas. It’s the third race I think I’ve run on it and the Butterfly Boogie, which I’ve registered for two or three times but never actually run, also uses it. What with the city of Dallas discouraging use of Winfrey Point for running events, I could see it getting even more use.

I lined up early, right about the time they started pumping the live band, whoever the hell they were, through the speakers near the start, which didn’t initially please me since I had already turned on my mp3 player. Then I realized they were covering “Is Anybody Going To San Antone” by Doug Sahm, and doing a credible job, so I conceded their tunes were at least momentarily better than mine and turned off my player. They played another song after that and then deejayed music returned; the only song I remember hearing before the race started was “I Ran” by A Flock of Haircuts. I mean, Seagulls.

The race started and I turned my tunes back on. Early on, like before we hit Turtle Creek Boulevard proper, I heard Liz Phair start singing “South Dakota” which reminded me of racing in South Dakota a couple of months ago; my Pavlovian response in this race was to run faster than prudence dictated. The first mile is pretty flat anyway, and possibly a slight net downhill; my first split was 7:12 which was good in that I didn’t feel like I was pushing that hard but bad because it’s still August in Dallas and I’m just getting over a cold. There’s probably going to be a bill to be paid.


The second mile has most of the uphill, mostly running up Blackburn to Cole and then again on the anonymous side street up to the Katy Trail. I ran it in 7:49, which I was also pleasantly surprised by, even though I knew it was going to be a struggle to hold that pace to the finish. A struggle I lost - about three-quarters through the third mile a coughing spell hit that slowed me to a walk. My split for that mile was 8:57 and I ran the last tenth in 44 seconds; my total time was 24:43. Which I think is faster than I ran the Katy Trail 5K back in May, so I have that going for me. Which is nice.