Ran Cornerstone 5K with Karen H. I got 1st place in my age group (60-65) and she got 1st place in her age group (45-49) and she got overall womens masters 2nd place, a great finish. I finished 34th overall out of 233 runners, and Karen finished 47th overall of 233.
This is a hilly course, 1st mile downhill and the next 2 basically all up hill and the last 0.2 miles to the finish are downhill back to the start line. Temp in the mid 80's in Austin, TX. The race didn't start until 8:30 AM so the temp was rising. A real fun race that gave me a chance to push the effort a little. Just for fun, we let all the other runners get started before Karen and I started the race. It was a chip net time race. This way through the entire race I set my goal to continuously be passing other runners, knowing that they had a head start on me so I should be passing them. This is a fun way to run a race.
I pushed the pace for the 1st mile hard enough that I figured it was a sub-seven minute mile, and it was downhill so I was convinced of the sub 7 minute pace. I got into my "2-step" breathing which generally occurs about a 7 min pace. When Karen and I ran a warm-up prior to the race we went down to the 1 mile marker and we both commented that this sure seemed like a long mile. Anyway the time to get to the 1 mile marker was 7:31, so I think this was more like 1.1 miles. I didn't know just how far Karen was behind me, but as I got a cup of water at the water stop, I walked for a few steps as I drank and there went Karen by me. As I caught up with her I congratulated her on getting in a good 1st mile, as she has had a cold and sore throat all this past week and still this morning. I pushed the 2nd mile which started the trek back up the hills and finished the 2nd mile at a 7:57, which was only 26 seconds slower than the downhill mile. This pace time convinced me that the 1st mile was longer than 1 mile, so the 2nd mile must have been a little shorter than 1 mile. Anyway the 2nd mile was a tough one going up hill. I took a 30 second walk break at the end of the 2nd mile for a little recovery. Continuing up the hills we headed into the 3rd mile. I knew Karen was close enough that she could see me, which was a motivation to keep pushing the pace enough to keep passing runners. As we approached the top of the last hill there was a group of 4 or 5 guys who were behind a woman in a green top. I caught up with them and passed them just before the top of the hill. Then the course turned right and we were headed downhill into the church parking lot where the race started, so we had about 0.2 miles to go. I sprinted out and left the group figuring to put distance between us. This was a nice finish and felt real good to push the last 0.2 at a fast pace. Karen finished a little over a minute behind me and had run a great race. We checked the finisher board and realized we had both finished 1st in our age groups, for fun. Then we found out she had finished 2nd overall women masters, even more fun. What a way to start your weekend. We won't brag on the times, but remember it was probably the toughest 5K course I have ever run.
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