Applefest recap

608 runners in the 5k, wow! Temps. were perfect, 48*, light winds and clouds. Got a good warm-up of about a mile along with 3 openers and striders. We lined up and had to wait for about 10 minutes before the gun went off so everyone cooled down somewhat, so it was all relative there.

Once we took off the front row absolutely sprinted off at 500 mph and Tony was in the group.

I ran a little more conservatively and ran the first mile at 5:45 since the return was going to be slower and I wanted to have gas in the tank for a strong finish. Reached the turnaround and started the terraced uphill run back to the finish. Reached the 2 mile mark at 12:11 and the hills are starting to kick in a little more now. I was running the hills pretty strong and keeping the pace consistent on the false flats until the next one. Doug and I, and three others were all running together until the 1/2 mile to go when Doug made his move. He attacked and took another younger guy with him and I couldn't match his pace since I was redlined at this point. I did pick the pace up a little and slightly gapped the other two guys that were with me, not knowing that one of them was in my 45-49 age group. I knew one was younger but I still wanted to finish strong and get as high a placing as I could. As we reached the left hand turn back onto Main Street with probably 3/10 of a mile to go I started my sprint and brought the other guy with me that was in my age group. We gapped the other runner and sprinted it out to the finish with me taking it by once second! Totally spent, we almost collapsed as the volunteers cut our chip off our shoe. We shook hands and congratulated each other and went our own way. When we got our awards was when we realized we were fighting for 1st in our age group.

I ended up winning the age group, finished 5th master and 19th overall. The course mapped out just slightly less than 3.2 miles, meaning I averaged a 6:13 mile for a harder than it looked course and as Doug said "it's no P.R. course"

Doug had a great race and won his age group, was 15th overall and 4th master with a mile average of 6:10. Tony won his age group and was 7th overall and averaged a 5:45 mile.

This coming weekend is UCI Cincinnati, bring on more hurt!