5K this AM out in the Finger Lakes region, a bit past Rochester. It was fun to race unknowns, and right off the bat we had a tight lead pack of 5. With no timers or mile markers, one guy helpfully read our splits aloud off his Garmin. Just after 2 miles, we were down to four, but #5 suddenly yelled an indistinguishable word. (Someone's name?) Front dude hit the brakes and turned around, and within a split second the rest of us realized that it was a wrong turn, and followed suit without any collisions.
#5, who had gone the right way, was slowly overtaken by all the guys he had just alerted. I felt bad that his honesty was repaid in this way, but it would have been wrong of him to stay silent. Around 2.5, one runner dropped into a gear that he had been saving, and no one else was going to match it. The pack dissolved after his move, #2 getting a bit ahead of me and #4 falling off. With another race tomorrow and now no chance of a win, I didn't try to catch #2 on the final uphill but just finished strong, maintaining pace and position.
The awards were in a high school cafeteria, and nearly everyone stayed, sitting quietly and politely clapping for all AG placers. It almost seemed a little cultish compared to how we do locally, with people casually walking around, talking, eating, drinking, and behaving like a herd of cats all through the awards. 17:16, I'm ok with that especially since it was 3.1+.
Hmm... 17:16 with having to retrace some steps sounds like a sub-17:00 to me. Congratulations, Jay! It's refreshing to hear about #5 runner alerting the front runners when you all took the wrong turn. Athletes don't have to be dishonest, even the most competitive ones. Like you said, he had to do it, but in today's world, it was certainly an honorable action. Now recover as much as you can and good luck tomorrow!
PRs: Boston Marathon, 3:27, April 15th 2013
Cornwall Half-Marathon, 1:35, April 27th 2013
18 marathons, 18 BQs since 2010
Nice job. And what Lily said. Speedy!
Damaris
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The awards were in a high school cafeteria, and nearly everyone stayed, sitting quietly and politely clapping for all AG placers.
That's funny I can picture it.
Thumbs up to that guy who yelled that you took the wrong turn. Great sportsmanship.
17:16 with a wrong turn. That's great, even for you. Congrats!
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17:16 even with a wrong turn. Nice, very nice! What are you running tomorrow?
If a trailer of beer shows up on time, and I get it inside quickly enough, a very informal XC race with team scoring based on HS Alum.
Congratulations!
20,000 miles behind me, the world still to see.
Dude you are getting faster yo. You might as well add the next logical 5k time goal to the 2015 thread!
17:16 is smoking. How far off is that from your PR?
You are so fast. I can't even imagine what that would feel like. Great job!
Nice job!
A wrong turn due to a poorly marked course would make me insane, and I'm not even as serious a racer as you. Seems to me that properly marking the course is job 1 for an RD, everything else is secondary.
Dave
Thanks guys.
19 seconds.
Rick, there seem to be certain strata of runners, and without a big breakthough to 16:30ish, I'm still only going to be competing with the same guys (at least locally). The 16:30 guys probably feel the same way when one of the few sub-16 racers shows up.
I guess training faster would be a good place to start.
Well done. Also, I didn't realize your 5K PR was in the sub 17 area. Fast is right!
It would have been a nice touch if there were some lunch ladies there to serve you food at the awards.
Life is good.
Barking Mad To Run
Retracing steps, and you still did 17:16? Dang, Jay, you are speedy! Congrats!
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Theodore Roosevelt
Great racing Jay. Good thing that wasn't a PR, otherwise you'd need to * it.