We came, we saw, WE PLACED!!!

The Brookville 5-miler was a fairly flat course, with gently rolling hills.  A line of thunderstorms had just passed through when I headed out for the 40-minute drive to Brookville, but it was mostly dry by race time, cloudy and around 71° at the start.  When I got there I was happy to meet Amie (runningsmarter) for the first time – very kewl!  We chatted briefly at the start and then we were off.  I lost sight of that speedy lady pretty quickly.

This was the first short race I’ve run since the 5k in March, so I wasn’t sure what pace to set, but I decided to aim for (8:00) and see how that held.  After the first half-mile we spread out nicely, and my first roadkill was a man with very cute legs and a 75+ shirt.  Turns out he was an ex-marine that Amie already knew from other races, and he and I live within a couple miles of each other.  (He won his AG - 75+ -  with a 42:44.)

The weather was getting blustery again, and at mile #2 we turned into a fairly stiff wind.  Then we turned after a bit, right into the wind.  After another quarter-mile, we turned again, right into the wind.  Hey, what was up with that?    As we started mile #3, it started raining in earnest, but it lasted only about 10-12 minutes and then it was barely sprinkling again by the last mile.

By the 3^rd mile, I was struggling to keep pace, sure that I was going to slow considerably before the end.  But mile #4 we had the wind at our back, and came back down some of the hills we had gone up the mile before.  Mile #5 was my fastest mile, because I knew if I could keep it up I would beat the 40:00 barrier.  When I came in sight of the finish line and saw the clock, I was able to kick hard, arms-pumping as I raced the clock in.

My Garmin was pretty accurate today, measuring at 5:01 miles.  Splits:

Mile 1:             7:59

Mile 2:             8:03

Mile 3:             8:09

Mile 4:             8:07

Mile 5:             7:26 (!)

Afterward I met up with Amie, who had beaten me in by several minutes, and after a change into dry shirts we got pancakes and sat together for the awards ceremony.  Happily, WE BOTH PLACED 2^ND IN OUR AG!!  (She’s the next one down from me.)   How cool is that?  Although now that official results are up on the website, I have been demoted to 3^rd place, but hey, I’m still very happy.  (and I still got the 2nd place medal...)  I didn’t beat my 2007 PR (39:25), but it was much better than I expected to do, and this gives me a nice baseline to set paces for my workouts.

Official Time: 39:52 (7:58 ave pace)

3/10    AG

19/69  Gender

79/179 OA

Amie wasn’t as happy with her race, saying she started out too fast, but her official time was still pretty darn fast.  I hope she doesn’t mind me putting her results here:

Amie’s official time: 36:25 (7:17 ave pace)

2/6       AG

12/69  Gender

46/179 OA

 Here we are, slightly soaked, right after the race. 

Wow......Great race ladies !

Thanks for the report Holly.

Great mentall toughness speedy Holly. Look at those paces! You are getting faster and faster dear sistahh.

Thanks for posting the picture of you and Amy. I am sure this will not be the only time you will be meeting up for races or just to hang out together.

Once again, congrats!!!

Thanks for posting this Holly!  Holly is waaay cool   It was so great meeting up with her and chatting after the race.  I hope we do get to meet up for some more races this fall.  Holly is one tough runner, when I mentioned days off she kind of laughed and said something to the effect of "days off, what are those, we don't need no stinkin' days off man."

That 75+ fellow just cracks me up, he's super nice.  He also plays in two softball leagues, one that's for folks 70+ and one for 75+ ... that's just too awesome!

Like Holly mentioned, I was disappointed with my race today.  I had a terrible week with the travel and not being able to prep the way I normally do and just couldn't pull it together.  I only got to warm up for about three minutes and then I started too fast.  I only had a hazy plan and execution of it was even worse.  My pacing was so erratic that I ended up taking 3 walk breaks (35 sec, 42 sec, and 39 sec).  I did learn a lot from this race though and that's the importance of all the prep work and mental focus that really makes a difference when racing.  My heart just wasn't there today and it showed.  (So as not to bore too many I'll post more of my lessons learned on my website runningsmarter dot spaces dot live dot com)

Time to move on though and I'm already prepping for the next 5 weeks until the taper begins which includes prepping for some races!!  I won't be caught unprepared again!

Thanks again Holly and thanks for the kind comments everyone!

Amie