The goal was sub 20. As usual, the running gods keep messing with me in order to keep me motivated. I knew i was going to be close but I didn't get the extra second that was lost somewhere on the course. According to my watch i was 20:00.10. I didn't write up my report yesterday because I was hoping that the official time would have me at 19:59. My watch time is always the exact same time as the official time, but I held out hope anyway. First mile 6:18. This was perfect, I could not have asked for a better 1st mile, this is exactly what I wanted. A 6:25 pace was my measuring stick. I felt really good after this first mile, I felt like I could maintain this pace the rest of the way, maybe even pick up a few seconds. When I got to the turnaround I was at 3:32, which still close to a 6:25 pace (only two seconds off). I felt like I was speeding up the 2nd half of the 2nd mile because I was slightly closing the gap on the people in front of me, plus it felt a tad faster. 2nd mile was 6:28. One of my age group competitors was was about 20 feet ahead of me the whole time, of course I was trying to catch him. This was unusual because he is always at least a minute faster than I am. I was encoraged because he was not gaping me, in fact, I gained a several feet on him during this mile. 3rd mile, I know I only have about a 5 second buffer for my sub 20 so I'm giving it all I've got. I'm still gaining on my competitor, he's maybe 15 feet ahead of me with about a half mile to go, I'm hanging on with everything I've got. I think I'm slowing a little bit because I'm passed by two other runners. This is discouraging but at this point I'm trying to hang on to my sub 20 and my AG competitor is beginning to gap me. I hit the mile marker, 6:33. My 5 second buffer is gone and now it's a 10th of a mile race with the clock to get back under 20. It's a tie, I finish in 20:00. This is a course PR for me so I have that to be happy about. Looking forward to the 10K and trying to pick off one of my AG competitors. I love this series for that reason. You become familiar with your competitors and it's fun to race against them. I love racing, competing and getting beat more often than I win. It keeps me training hard and coming back for more. A top three finish and a ribbon does not look likely this year but I'm sure as heck going to try! | 