Stockade-athon Diary 21: Phew

Sunday, 9 a.m., brilliantly sunny and unseasonably warm. Stockade-athon, 15k.

I don't think it's possible for that to have been more fun. I ran 1:05:25.whocareshowmanytenths, finished 166th overall, 23rd of 120 in the M45-49 and posted a ridiculous 7:02 mile pace, far outstripping what I believed/hoped/expected to do.

In the last few days, some people asked me what kind of time I was shooting for, and of course, I stonewalled and refused, utterly opposite to the type of behavior I expect from runners when I'm writing a race advance. I wrote "If nothing stupid happens with my knee, I'll be under 1:10; the fun part will be seeing by how much" on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope and gave it to Bob Weiner before the race, to be opened after.

Then I was accused of sandbagging by Mark Mindel, and perhaps that's true, but only half true. I calculated a slightly conservative finish time based on 5k races I've done this year, especially the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Albany (21:19), and I was only 11 seconds faster than that through 5k on Sunday, with a month or whatever more of training under my belt. My 10k split was 42:53 (21:45) and I ran the final 5k in 22:33.

Now it's 10:30 Sunday night, and I think I'll go home and take a shower.

Reminder to course marshals: first beer's on me at Pinhead Susan's Monday night. I'll be there around 6 or so, 7 at the latest.

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