Apologies to Dickens. I ran to defend last year's third place finish in the old guy division this morning; rain stopped about the time we got to the park; it was windy, a tad cool, ... and they started the 3.5 miler nearly 30 minutes late. I ran with the lead group for .25 mile before noticing my GPS indicated a pace of 6.5 minutes ... my target being 7.5 at the open. I decided to slow down.
Fast forward to the last climb on the tortuous last mile. Flashing back to losing second place by a second due to folding on this climb, I sucked it up and passed a guy I had followed the entire race. Still in possession of my wits, if not my lungs, I expected a challenge in the last 40 yards. Where last year it was a 9 year old trying to spoil my finish, this year he was 32. I fought this one off, beating him by a foot - in his good natured estimate - and after 4 minutes of attempting to catch my breath, retired to await the times, confident of a podium finish.
Alas, Dickens had it right; despite finishing nearly 3 minutes faster than last year at what I would say was a blistering pace of 8'30" per mile, I found myself in 5th place in the over 50 and 28th overall vs last year's 27th overall. If memory serves, the 50 year old who placed first ran at a 7'05" pace - about as fast as I can run downhill!
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