Change number 1: According to the race results, there were 1399 finishers, 523 of them male. You were encouraged to attach a sticker someplace on your body that would signify if you were single and looking for love.
Change number 2: This picture is 2 hours after the race. Free beer, wine, food, band, great 70+ sunny weather. Everybody stayed around to enjoy the atmosphere. The race ran back and forth across the bridge in the background.
So, how did the race go. Well, I was a bit nervous due to my long absence from such short, hard effort runs. I adjusted my training prior to the race and put in my longish bike on Friday (instead of Saturday) with a short run afterwards and only swam Saturday morning (with a pull buoy) so my legs wouldn't be trashed for the afternoons race.
I had mentally established some achievable goals (sub 22) and a streatching goal (sub 21) based on training runs and a bit of wishfull thinking. Recently I have not been able to break 22 on the finishing 5K leg of a sprint tri, but surely I could in a 5 K running race? With Garmin on wrist, I nosed up to a reasonable close distance to the starting line, once the women had started 3 minutes earlier.
When the men were let loose, I had to run harder than I wanted in order to work my way to some open air. My Garmin said 6:20 pace, way too fast for me to sustain. I settled into a sub 7 and felt OK at that pace, but wished to see a faster number for my effort. There were some small hills on the run, 160 ft of verticle climbing according to my Garmin, so it was not exactly a flat course. But I took advantage of the downhills and pushed to the finish in 20:43, 6:40 pace. 38/523 males, 46/1399 runners. Ahead of anybody over age 54. Anybody got an extra beer ticket?
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