Small races are often interesting and they are fun for the not supper fast runner like me. If it is a big race I'm not at the front. But if the race is small enough and the fast guys are elsewhere, I've got a chance to run at the front.
The race was 4 laps around Sugar House Park, which is a hilly course. The start of the 10k had few runners and almost all of them looked as old or older than I am. None of them looked young and fast! We started after the 5k which meant passing people, but that was not a problem in a race this small. At the start I took the lead but only held it for about a 1/2 mile before being passed by one runner. He surged ahead but never gaped my by more than 50 yards the whole race. Every time I would start to reel him in, he would reopen the gap on a downhill. This race coming at the end of a 70+ mile week meant my legs were far from fresh and I could never quite catch back up. On the last uphill of the last lap I started getting closer and closer but I just couldn't seem to power down the last downhill and he beat me across the line by probably 5 or 10 seconds (results aren't up yet). At the finish a strange thing happened, some guy was all excited and started talking to me about how he runs 6 miles in 50 minutes on the treadmill but the adrenaline really must have kicked in because it was a race. I asked if he ran the 5k and he showed me his RunnerCard results which said he was 1st in the 10k with a time of 35:xx! I asked if he really took off at the start and he said no, he was behind me and the guy in the blue shirt (the guy who beat me) and must have passed us somewhere. Long story short, the guys in the pace car never saw him pass, the guy in the blue shirt never saw him pass, I never saw him pass, and he runs a 50+ minute 10k on a treadmill, but he had convinced himself he just ran a 10k at a 5:40ish pace and won! Oh well he seemed so excited about it, there wasn't any prize money or anything, and it just really didn't matter. Neither the guy in the blue shirt nor I said anything more and Mr. Speedy took home his prize. So, should I have reported him? Was it unfair to the guy in 3rd? Did anyone really care in a small race like this? Will the guy ever realize that he only ran 3 laps? Will he wonder why he is so much slower in his next race?
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