Race Fun

Well now that I've recovered from celebrating, I should chronicle the race a bit. First off, it was good to see Sarah there and I was able to meet Jose. I also met Bruce Mansur before the race. Knowing he was in my age group and that he is faster than me, my plan was to keep him in sight as long as possible. The Reindeer Run is gun time, not chip, and there are a lot of young people running. I lined up next to Bruce in the third or fourth row, close to the start line. The really fast people were in the front of course, followed by a lot of teenagers, many who turned out to be pretty fast.

At the gun, Bruce got ahead of me and it was somewhat crowded, which slowed me down. But this was probably good as I seem to do better when I start slow. I kept Bruce in sight for the first mile, passed a number of runners and hit the mile mark at about 7 minutes as planned. The second mile around the small lake was pretty tough, but I hung in there pretty well keeping pace with the runners around me. I did pass some teenagers, as usual many young'uns go out too fast. I lost sight of Bruce ahead.

I hit the spot where there was one mile to go at about 14:30 and felt like fading. However, my goal was to just break 22 and I thought I was in pretty good shape for that. The last mile was slightly uphill and slightly into the wind. I tried to dig deep and hold my place.

With about a half mile to go I felt a presence at my shoulder. I thought someone might be drafting on me. This is a race after all so I thought the heck with this and sped up to drop him. I dropped him but it took a bunch out of me. He came back and passed me with about a quarter mile to go. He looked like he was in my age group. Ouch.

Fortunately I have a kick. We turned the corner for the last 100 yards and I kicked. I passed him with about 50 yards to go and he finished 2 seconds behind me. That is how I won third place and he (Jeff Gilbert) got fourth in our age group. Bruce Mansur finished 26 seconds ahead of me for second. Special thanks to Ben Harvie for volunteering and not running, otherwise I would have been fourth!

Man I would have been upset if Jeff had held me off. A real race experience was fun. Thanks Veronica for the picture. I do really love this little Reindeer Run, now it is time to start thinking about the 30k in Sugarland next Sunday.

Caption contest:

"It's my blog and I can brag if I want to"

"Look Ma I finally got a third place trophy after 51 years"

"Check out ebay tomorrow if you need a trophy"

"Buckeye fan accepts running trophy on behalf of Troy Smith, the second best QB in college football"