Instead, I turned by focus to today's Father's Day 5 miler in the park. I felt good for this one, but the weather was looking a little warm. My PR was from Jan 2009, which meant I should be able to beat it, but January was probably a bit cooler weather...
The start went smoothly -- for me, anyway. About 50 yards or so into the race I heard noise, and looked to my right in time to see a runner hit the ground hard. The noise that I had heard must have been contact between runners before the fall. Somehow it didn't turn into pile up, although I have no idea how. The guy was on his back, and perpendicular to traffic, which at that point was still very dense. I looked like it really hurt. I redirected my attention to my own position and hoped the runners around me did the same. It would have been easy for rubber necking to have caused another collision.
Continuing on, I saw Flyer JF not to far ahead, and I seemed to be keeping up, or even catching him. JF is very fast, and I normally don't see him until after the race. This meant one of 3 three things: 1] I had suddenly become super fast (dream on), 2] He was having a slow day (more likely) or 3] I was going out WAY too fast. (bingo!).
I hit the mile 1 marker at 6:17. Given that my PR pace was 6:37, this may have been juuuuuust a tad too quick. I tried to relax and settle in, resulting in splits of 6:24, 6:40 (uphill mile), and 6:30.
Right before the mile 4 marker, I came up on a runner who looked my age, or probably older. We greeted each other with the secret exchange of two older guys congratulating each other on being up there with the young folk. He pulled into a water stop, caught back up with me, and offered me one of the two cups he had snagged. This, at a point in the race when most folks were really starting to hurt. What a guy. After a bit, I moved ahead, but I had the feeling I had not seen the last of him. With about a quarter mile to go, the heat and aggressive running caught up with me, and I thought for a moment that my race might end prematurely. I held steady and got through that moment (whew). With about 100 yards to go, the guy who had offered me water went flying past. I thought about trying to catch him, but only briefly. After the finish I congratulated him on the awesome hot weather kick, and we talked for a while. He coaches High School track in CT, and I really enjoyed chatting with him. He made references to his retirement age, which made me realize that he was older than I had thought -- even more impressive. I just checked the results, and he is 9 years older than me, finished 4th in his age group (in a points race!), and had a 80% AG. That's who I want to be when I grow up.
I ended up with a 32:30 (6:30 pace), a PR for 5 miles. I was 15th of 380 men in my age group -- much better than usual for me in a points race. I'm very pleased with this result, especially given the heat, and I'm really looking forward to continuing my focus on these shorter distances.
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