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Comments: Started with the 1:35 pace group, stayed in front of them for about 1/4 mile then moved to the right and slowed down a little. As we turned onto the main road after the start there was this loud donkey sounding noise ahead. I thought it was someone with a noisemaker of some kind. As we turned onto the road there was the Donkey! He was just Heehawin' away as we entered the road. He was probably saying "Yeah Yeah Cows, whatever, when you going to have a race for US?" After about a mile or so the 1:40 group caught up and I stayed at that pace for a while. I once again, moved to the right and let tham pass. At that point I was thinking I would just hang between them and the 1:45 pace group then see what I've got with 3-4 miles to go. The 1:40 pace group slowly moved away but I figured I'd at least keep them in sight like I did at Rock the Parkway half and reel them in later, IF I wanted to. I was basically running alone most of the race, passing a person here or there. There was a headwind heading north, probably 10-12 mph at that time. The weather forecast had 20 mph winds hitting between 9 and 10 AM. I hit the turnaround, looked at the watch, time was around 54 minutes so I knew I would have to ramp it up a bit if I wanted to reel in the 1:40 group. It was uphill coming towards the turnaround so a nice batch of downhill plus the tailwind on the way back. As I headed south I could hear a few runners commenting about the headwind. By this time it had gotten worse, working its way up to that 20 mph speed I'm sure. Hi Fived Pete and Jon as they came down from the turnaround (don't remember if I saw Steve or not but he was cooking towards a sub 1:31 finish, in MY age group of course). Saw another friend Dave and another friend James who was a pacer. Somewhere between mile 7 and 8 I passed a woman and said "let the mental games begin", she said something like "tell me about it". I probably passed at least a dozen people on the way back. Somewhere around mile 9 I was about a minute behind the 1:40 pace group so I started to dig in a little. Not too much, just a little. I did get closer but they seemed to pull away in the next mile again. So now I was about 1.7 miles from the finish and at least 45 secoonds or so behind so I decided that I was having a good day and didn't need to chase them down. Plus the fact that I had an OLY Tri the next weekend may have had some weight in that decision. As I approached the last turn towards the finish I was equal with a guy that looked my age so I asked him "what age group are you?". He said 40's, then said 47 or something like that. So I said "me too, so it's on then?" I don't remember his exact words but they were to the effect of "Let's race", I then said "I'm good, it's yours, I've got a triathlon next Sunday". He said something like "OK that makes sense" and booked it to the finish. I don't think I would have beaten him anyways, he looked pretty stong at the time. I don't even know why I asked his age group if I wasn't willing to race him in. Maybe wisdom on my part snuck in. Mile Splits per Strava 1 7:54 2 7:57 3 7:35 4 7:49 5 7:36 6 7:35 7 7:29 8 7:25 9 7:15 10 7:27 11 7:14 12 7:30 13 7:32 What would you do differently?: I don't know, I'll let you know in next weeks race report after my 5150! Maybe I should have taken it easy.....  Post race
Warm down: Walked around, talked to the guys, got some good BBQ sandwiches. What limited your ability to perform faster: Well, only running 2-3 times a week maybe? Event comments: Very good event. The Race Organizers did a Top Notch job! Plenty of volunteers, they had a great parking plan after the rain soaked the grass fields. Volunteers were friendly, greeted everyone as we arrived. The parking updates were great on their FB page, all the way up to race morning. I think there were sky divers but I never looked up! Last updated: 2013-03-06 12:00 AM
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United States
KC Running Company
51F / 11C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 88/1127
Age Group = M45-49
Age Group Rank = 12/64
This is race 3 of a three race series (Heartland 39.3) over a 4 week period. If you're fast you can win some dough, top 5 get prize money based on cumilative time for all three races.
Did the typical 3 S's, got in the car and headed south. This race starts in the small town of Bucyrus where you guessed it, there are lots of cows and cow pastures around. Because of all the rain the days before the race, they had to shift parking from the grass areas to parallel parking along rural roads. The race organizers were on the ball. As I got off the freeway there were police officers directing traffic, then you saw school bus upon school bus ready to drive us the the race start. Each bus driver gave you a colored sticker to remind you what area you parked in.
I got the the race start area which was at a school and we sat in the gymnasium. That was nice since it was still a little chilly and windy outside. Saw Jon, his friend, later came Pete and Steve.
Took my stuff to bag check, nice big room in the gym. Used the port-a-potty, came out with about 5 min. to race start. Pacers, groups etc. had already filled the start chute so I entered from the front. I stood there for a moment in the front row with the 5 minute milers and slowly squeezed back to where I "belonged", between the 1:35 and 1:40 pace groups.
The first mile was going to be my warmup.