The weather seemed to be holding with overcast and flecks of mist every now and then. Tonight's race was a unknown distance and you had to be ready for anything. After finishing the race you had to guess what the distance was and the person closest would get a t-shirt. So the secret to this race was to go out at about 90% and hang on for dear life. Normally the course is 3.6 miles long so we weren't sure if it was going to be 3 miles or 5 miles.
As always Paul (the race director) did his normal thank you's and sounded the bull horn. We were off, but not as fast as usual. In fact Marc was running very conservatively. When we reached the road I realized why, he didn't know which way to turn. I knew we had to take a right but I wasn't going to give it away until I was ready to take it and neither was anyone else behind Marc. This was our only competitive advantage against a 20 year old kid. When I finally hit the turn Marc followed along with another 20'something year old kid. Us old masters then started joking with Marc about where the next turn was. One guy yelled out "Westford Center" another said "onto the dirt rode named Hartford" another told him "Chelmsford" and lastly "Lowell" was yelled out. Marc wasn't buying any of our babbling. And the fact of the matter was there were signs from this point on. So Marc just stated taking control and pulling away.
At about 1 mile into the race Marc and the other kid had about 20 yard lead on me and Ken was on my heels. I also thought that I could hear the pitter patter of Jill's shoes. As we approached the 2 mile mark the kids were 100 yards out and pulling even further away. At this point we were passing some of the walkers (who leave 15 minutes ahead of the runner) and I commented out loud "Damn young KIDS"!! One of the walkers yelled back "hey that's what I just said". At this point Ken and Allen weren't to far behind me. We took a left hand turn on Robinson road so there was to be a good climb and this is where I was going to have to try and shake my stockers. As we hit the hill I pushed it as hard as I could and the boys started dropping off my tail. At the top of the hill we took a left on Hartford and I hoped that I could string out my lead even more. My legs were dead. I had nothing left after the hill. My only hope was that my stockers were dead too. We came down Hartford and turned into WA's parking lot for the final 300 yards. I peaked over my shoulder and Allen and Ken were only 30 yards back. I dug deep and tried to sprint but I had nothing left. I was hanging on for my life. I hit the hill up to the track and peaked over my shoulder again. My stockers had not made up any ground. I finished up 3rd over all and first in my age category.
My time was 20:49. Based on this and that my usual time was right around 23 minutes I figured the course was 3.33 miles. After my cool down with Jill I circled back and asked Paul the distance and he told me it was 3.23 miles. I was close but no cigar. I went home with out another t-shirt. My wife will be SOOOO UPSET.
After 6 of the 10 races I have a strong hold of first place in my age category. I now have finished: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th overall in the 6 races. I'm having lots of fun trying to find my speed again and having some good battles with friends. In fact I tallied up my times and Allen's times and found out that there is only 15 seconds separating us after all 6 races. And best of all we are both getting faster almost every week.
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