Notes
8th MoCowBell race. Initially standing 3rd row behind some people that will have difficulty completing the event in under 30 min. Announcer asks that sub 20 min people be allowed up front. No one moves. Me and 3-4 other people including the OA winner step up. He is a 6' tall African American that has a look of fast. Race announcer asks him what he is going to run. He says sub 16; I am pretty sure English is not his native language. I wait a couple minutes as I am standing right beside him and ask him "what are you looking to run today?". He says low 16 and possibly sub 16. He then asks me and I say hopefully low 18. We both end up being a bit optimistic. Brandon said he ran mid-16.
We take off and first quarter mile straight ahead prior to a left hand turn which takes us up to the next block. The entire block is a hill climb. I count the people ahead of me about .2 miles into the race and there are 9 guys and 1 woman ahead of me. We head up the block long hill onto 2nd street. Amazingly, at the top of the hill, I am in 4th place right behind the 2nd and 3rd place guys. I draft off the #3 guy for about 10 seconds, check pace and decide to try to keep #2 as close as possible as he is pacing closest to me. The kenyon-looking guy is already gone. Move into 3 slot and stay about 4 seconds back from #2. First mile = 5:55. Move to the northernmost portion of the course and have a tight 180* turn as we head back south...... Those are cadence crushers. I am 6 seconds behind the #2 guy at the turn around and have gapped the 4/5 runners by about 20-25 seconds. The girl is in 5th place behind a Master's runner and I can tell she will probably be in 4th place soon.
Keep focusing on keeping #2 within striking distance. Mile 2 split = 5:54 for elapsed 2 mile times of 11:51. Next mile is make or break it. Now on Katy trail. Great running surface. #2 guy is starting to creep away from me. I feel my cadence beginning to slow as my hips start tightening up some. Hit several 50m surges in attempt to keep mile three from getting away from me. Not sure what my mile three pace is as we come up to the final two turns; first one 90* right off the Katy trail (about half a block) then final 90* left turn and .22 miles sprint to the finish chute. My thought is I may have slowed just enough mile three to put the sub-18:30 in jeapardy. Decide to grow some balls, take a deep breath and hit a "hard" strider for the final stretch. First see the clock at 18:08 and am moving about as fast as I can. Turnover is definity cranking. Cross clock at 18:23. Announcer says I ran a 18:24. Still don't have official results up due to national snafu with cronotrack timing. Mile 3 was 6:02 with 3 mile elapsed time of 17:53 low; final .12 mile was 31 seconds. My fastest finish kick in a long time.
Pretty pumped after thinking things over. Have several age-graded calculators but I am using the 2015 WMA age-graded calculator for road races: Age-graded = 15:49 and Age-perf% = 82.14%.
I will take it and hope for a good race day on Turkey day to see if I can improve on it assuming I can stay healthy for another 6+ weeks.
Winner: Ratlale Mokone 27 y/o in 16:32
Runner up: Joshua Mullins 30 y/o in 18:08. Total years for top 2 being alive = 57 years.
Long live CBEGM..........