Had a pretty good race this morning. My plan was to run between 6:10 and 6:15 per mile for at least the first 4 miles and then hang on for the last two. As it turned out I did even a little better than that. Richie and I warmed up together and I ran into an old friend from high school and college, Craig Oldham who was there with his 4 daughters to run the 5k.
Richie and I ran together for the first couple of miles. Mile 1 was controlled at 6:03 and Richie kept tugging at my shirt to keep me from going too fast. He was very conversational and I knew he was feeling competitive. The 5k and 10k started together so we knew a number of the runners in front of us would be peeling off at the 5k turn around. We backed off to 6:13 in mile 2 at which point we saw our friend Drew Chandler heading back on the 5k having already made the turn around and he was battling for the lead. This of course resulted in a surge of adrenaline for Richie who increased the pace, especially when it appeared after the 5k runners had made their turn, that we were in the top 5 in the 10k.
Richie began to pull away from me with another younger runner, constantly calling back to me to stay with him. He was thinking that I was dropping off the pace, when in fact I was steady and actually ran mile 3 at 6:11.
We made the turn around and Richie by this point had pulled away from the younger runner who I was keeping in my sites about 50 to 60 yards in front of me. Mile 4 was 6:13 and I thought to myself, "well, I have done exactly what I had planned - 6:10 to 6:15 per mile through 4...I feel good, let's keep it going."
Mile 5 had us running into the stragglers from the 5k on the out and back course and it was a bit of a game of frogger weaving around them and somewhat distracting - so my split was 6:24. But though I could barely see Richie, the other runner in front of me looked to be faltering a bit, so I refocused my concentration with the thought that I may have a chance to reel him in before the end.
Mile 6 was 6:15 and I could see that I was coming within striking distance to catch the runner in front of me. He was running high on the curve and I was cutting the tangent when my friend Craig appeared on the road with a camera to take my picture. He decided to run with me for the last 2 tenths of a mile - which was nice of him, but it completely threw me off my focus to catching the guy in front of me.
I ended up running the last 2 tenths at 5:53 pace - and may be would have ended up 5th overall if I had not been distracted (may be not).
In any event, I was quite pleased with my fitness and my competitiveness. 6:03, 6:13, 6:11, 6:13, 6:24, 6:15 (and 5:53 ppm for .2 miles).
Richie ran 37:36 and was 3rd overall. He was very pumped after the race. He ended up running under 6 mins per mile for the last 3 miles.
We did a cool down together, I visited with Craig and his young daughters and picked up 1st place age group award.
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