Dave - that's crazy. They should have had course monitors at the turn-around so everybody runs the same race. And 3 out of 5? Were they all the same race company?

 1:31:37

Great job and congrats on the placement!

So here's the dealio.

jhfc.  I'd say they need to have a course marshal at the turnaround, but I've also done plenty of small races with unattended turnarounds and haven't had any issues.  Kind of related, but yesterday in the last mile of my HM I was seriously questioning if I had missed a turn and went off course.  There was nobody near me front or back, I didn't see any markers, and there was just silence around me.  I didn't like that "WTF" feeling.

4 in a warmish rain.

Freesoul, sorry for your loss.

OFR, nice race for both you & DW,

DavePNW, what a cluster. Hope you enjoy the pie. And when I hear that type of pie, all I think is "bitch set me up".

So here I am wondering why the hell my coach hasn't given me any feedback or comments on my race yesterday, thinking he's probably pissed that I ran too hard.  I mean, I had a good day!    Turns out he crashed on his road bike yesterday, broke his collarbone, and spent most of the day in the hospital.  oops

 

 

Kind of related, but yesterday in the last mile of my HM I was seriously questioning if I had missed a turn and went off course.  There was nobody near me front or back, I didn't see any markers, and there was just silence around me.  I didn't like that "WTF" feeling.

The worst. I had that in my marathon. For most of the 2nd half we were with HM runners. But in the middle of that, around 15-20, was a marathon-only stretch. And that late in a small race, I was pretty much on my own. Mostly clear-cut, but your marathon brain plays funny tricks on you. I got to a point where I wasn't sure, and actually screamed "where the fuck am I going??", to absolutely no one. Pure terror, especially when I'm running the race of my life. There were actually cones with arrows on top, but I'm thinking "are those for me? They could be for traffic or something". Because no signs saying "marathon" or "runners". They really need to go overboard with course markings.

So here's the dealio. This course was an out & back. About a mile or so in, it looks like I'm running 5th OA. Two in front of me are young kids who I figure will burn out. One of them did and I passed him. Another was a woman who I was running about 10m behind for the whole race. I caught & passed her around mile 3. I caught right up to the other kid shortly before the finish, but he saw me & found another gear that I didn't have. So it looked like 3rd OA.

 

But I see a guy who I know from other races (and usually beats me) already finished, even though I went ahead of him shortly after the start & never saw him after that. (I thought it was especially strange when I didn't see him coming the other way after the turnaround.) He said "you ran too far". Which is weird because I & those in front of me turned around at a pretty clear turnaround point. Later he told me that a guy (must have been pretty shortly after me) turned around early where there was some other kind of sign, started yelling that it was the turnaround, and everyone followed him. Or at least enough people did. IDK. Not sure how you sort that one out in the end, unless you can somehow gather the top finishers and check watches or something. The woman I passed was kind of fretting about it, because she should have been 1st woman, but 2 women who ran short passed her. Those 2 women (mother/daughter) came forward and got it fixed for the announcements. (They only announced top 3 OA M/F.) Looks like they did not fix it in the race results though. I didn't make a big stink about it because no additional prize other than a pie, and obviously a pretty slow field anyway. Although for me, 3OA is a pretty big deal, so left with kind of a bad taste in my mouth.

That's crazy as well as laziness and ineptitude on the RD's part. There should always be a course marshal at a turnaround like that as well as a cone. Road markings are never adequate and also easily missed or misinterpreted.

How did your legs feel? 2 weeks after a marathon would result in a slower time for me. I know it takes longer than that for my legs to get back to normal.

 

Also, I think you can run the 6:26 pace... just maybe not off of marathon training.

 

and you saw how many times I had to try to get it...

 

Congrats on the pie! I have never had marion berry. How was it??

They pretty much felt like they do during a 5k. I do realize if I want to seriously attack sub-20, I need to seriously train for it.

That 20:09 was almost a curse - other than that, I've never come close, so might not be thinking about it. (That came 3 weeks after a marathon incidentally. Today was actually my 4th best ever - there's been a 20:17 and 20:22.)

If you do have any suggestions of workouts for the next 3 weeks until my next one, let me know.

The pie is good, and helps get that bad taste out of my mouth, heh. Marionberries are pretty popular in the PNW. It's really just a type of blackberry.

Dave -- you're probably going to run sub-20 before I will, and I am going to do it if it kills me, so you will too. 

You are close Dave, you can get it! Just like the marathon, the more you run them, the better you get. And you can run one like every week  or two if you wanted. Plenty of people do.