I finally got the W!!!

In the over 50 age category that is. Since turning 50 I've finished in the top 3 of the 50 and over age category in every race (except for The Boston Marathon), but had yet to finish 1st in the age category. I've been close, one race it was announced that I won but after a couple of days of "fixing" the results I ended up 3rd. In another race I was the first to cross the finish line but they were using chip time and a guy who finished behind me got the W.

Today I headed down to Concord, MA to run the Emerson Hospital 5K run for cancer race. After last weeks very poor showing in Andover (19:48 5K) I wanted to change things up a bit and see if I could redeem myself.

First change was to wear the acidotic RACING White & Blue racing singlet and shorts. Second, instead of starting the race with no real warm up, I did a 2.3 mile easy run on the course. Third, I was going to start the race more conservatively, at least that was the plan.

As always I arrive at the race site early, and it was pouring. This was going to be a wet day no matter what happened. I quickly signed in and went back to my car to get ready for my warm up run. I had a map of the race course so I decided to do my warm up on the course. During my warm up the rain just kept coming down. I finished up and was soaked. It's a good thing I had a total change of running gear for the race.

As I lined up for the start of the race I started up a conversation with a guy who was wearing a BAA singlet. His name was Kyle Bowers. He ran a 2:52 in Boston so I knew that I wasn't going to be finishing to close to him. In addition there were a number of young (teenagers) runners up front who looked like they were going to go out fast. I wasn't going to get drawn into that trap like last weekend.

The race started right on time and sure enough the teenagers went out fast. Kyle was right behind them. I held the horses back and ran very controlled. I was running in 10th place but gaining on some of the people who had got caught up in the start. I hit the mile marker in 5:45 but my watch, a Garmin 305, had not registered the mile point until 5:50. Either way I was much faster then last weekend. So much for my racing plan. But for some reason, I felt much better then last weekend. Could be the warm up run, or maybe it was because I didn't sprint out at the start. At this point I was running in 6th place and that's where I would stay for the remainder of the race.

Below are all my splits

1 5:50

2 6:17 12:07

3 6:12 18:19

3.1 :34 18:53

Overall pace 6:05's

So I ran nearly a minute faster then last weekend and I finally got the W in the 50 year old age category!

I'll take it!!

I guess I need to do another track workout this week so I'll have even more speed for "The Rock Pile" next weekend. RIGHT!!!