Blueberry Stomp and other assorted stuff

As promised, here is a (belated) race report from Saturday's Blueberry Stomp 5k. This is a local 5k that is part of Imlay City's Blueberry Festival, and Saturday was my 2nd time running in it. Last year, I finished in 22:25, placing 2nd in my age group.

I walked to City Hall were the check in/registration was, registered, and did a brief warm up. By 5 to 9, everyone was at the start line. The gun time was supposed to be 9am, but about that time we were informed that there would be about a 10 minute delay due to a minor fender-bender along the route. After the wait, the cop who was set to lead us out informed the starter that it was clear. Set..... GO! And with that, we were running. I quickly settled in to a fast but comfortable pace, and was really feeling good. As is typical with these races for me, I couldn't tell for sure who was in what age group, so I made it a point to just run my own race.
We rounded the first turn and headed on to the Polly Ann trail for a short stint. Here, close to a mile in, I started wondering "what the bleep are you doing????" This seems to happen in every race I enter, but thankfully the feeling quickly fades, and I find my groove.
We rounded the bend at the halfway point, and as this race has an "out-and-back" layout, I was able to see how I stacked up against the other runners. I knew I was a few minutes behind the fast guys, as was to be expected, but I was in the top 1/3 of the runners.
The last half was a mix of fighting the pain, trying (successfully) to pick off a couple of runners (who turned out to be in the 40-49 age group, and hoping to be able to ratchet the pace up for the last 1/3 mile.
I crossed the finish line at 21:25, which netted me 2nd in Men 30-39. I was half a minute behind the class winner, and a minute ahead of 3rd place. Best of all, this was a personal best for me in the 5k.

Saturday afternoon we hosted a small party along with some friends of ours. The highlight of this was getting to see my Niece, who is 2, and my Nephew, who is a month old. They are a couple of cuties!

On Monday, I rode Stony after work. There were not a whole lot of riders out there, which didn't suprise me since it was quite warm and humid. The small bit of rain we received Sunday helped to firm things up some.
I rode 3 laps each of the roller coaster and the pines, and with some doubletrack added, I put in 23 1/4 miles. Total riding time was 1:55. This was probably my fastest non-race ride at Stony. I made it a point to focus on my lines through the turns, and being smooth at the enterances to the turns.
One other bright spot: there's this left hand climbing turn in the new section added this past spring. This particular turn is near where the new trail re-joins the old, and has been the subject of a few gripes over on MMBA.org. Particularily, this turn has been a thorn in my side, with me being able to make it about 1 in every 4 attempts. On Monday I attempted this turn 3 times, and completed it 3 times. I think I may have the line and the technique for this turn down finally.