PHSC 5K
14th place overall, 1st Age Group
Really enjoy this race and look forward to it each year. Good weather, had a nice warm up, but did not sleep well last night. Slept good until about 2:20 am and then barely got back to sleep when the alarm clock went off.
Lined up one or two rows back after the fast cross country guys and then the cross country women. I was able to get on a pretty good pace past the startup melee, and got in front of all of the fast women that were going out at an easy pace and would pick it up later. First mile came in at 6:49 and I was ahead of the course marker. It's a two loop course.
Coming past the start line I was by myself. the fast guys were far enough ahead I couldn't see them, the women were behind me but not sure by how much. As I got close to the out and back hairpin, athletic director Steve called out to me "You've got a bunch of girls right behind you".
Just after I turned around at the hair pin, four of the women went past me. This actually helped a bit as I was fading. My pace had dropped and I was much slower than 7:00, but gradually got it back down to right at 7:01. Slowly picked up some more steam but was not able to close the gap to catch up to one of the women.
When I saw the time clock, it was like 20:42, I had a chance to make it. The clock was counting down in slow motion but faster than I wanted to and the last time I saw on the clock said 20:58. Thought I'd made it. Looked at my watch which said 21:00 exactly. There was no start mat so chip time was actually gun time, and the official time was exactly 21:00
The person ahead of me finished at 20:59. I later saw pictures from the finish line and I could see me stopping my watch just as my feet were on the wrong side of the finish mat. Should not have looked at the clock!
Oh well, fitness wise I think I'm there but execution cost me a second or maybe two. Also, when I was not hitting the splits for the first two miles for what I thought I needed for sub-21:00 I kind of gave up a little bit.
Of the four women that passed me, one of them ran 20:30, which proves there was still enough race left to make up some more time.
Tom ran and came in first place overall with 16:17. I was not the fastest "old guy", RJ at 44 years old was third overall with a time of 16:48. Jenny was also there and won overall masters female.
After the race did another mile and a half cool down before running 5 more miles with Evan and then 5 more by myself to finish off the morning with 16 miles.
Next 5k will be the Turkey Trot, lots of runners to chase and fewer turns so usually a faster course for me.
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