Oldest Man In The Race!

Went in to Las Cruces today to run a 5K. The race was a leukemia support race in the name of a hispanic woman who succombed to the disease last year. The race was at the park in the center of old mesilla. The great majority of the 200 or so runners and walkers, about half doing each, were from Las Cruces and knew of the woman. The T-shirts had Chili peppers all over them, and other assorted hispanic themed stuff. My goal was to try and keep my pace under 5:35 per kilometer, which is the equivalent of 9 minutes a mile pace.
The weather was warmer than expected (what else is new this year!), and was about 78 degrees and sunny at the start. Got up to around 85 at my finish time based on my carmometer. I had my garmin watch set on average pace at the top (in Kilometers), and distance (also in kilometers) on the bottom. I ran the first kilometer in 5:12, under pace. The second and third kilometer was on gravel and dirt, and my average pace at the end of 3 kilometers had slipped to 5:22. The 4th kilometer started to drag, and involved about 4 quick turns. At that point I had fallen to 5:27 pace. At that point I could see the finish in the distance, and felt like puking, but I just put my head down, started pulling with my arms, and did my best grandpa impression of sprinting. Came thru the chute in 26:45, for a pace of 5:21K/8:36 Mile. Damn. Why does running this slow seem this damn hard! Anyway, there were just two guys in our age group of 60-69, and I was 2nd bye 15 seconds. I beat all 4 guys in the 50-59 age group, and half of the six in the 40-49 age group. When I went to get my finishers medal, the announcer said my time, that I was from Deming, and that I was THE OLDEST FINISHER IN THE RACE. I thanked him for that, in as sarcastic a way as I could.
So, that was that. Did some shopping at Tucan grocery store, and had coffee and lunch at Starbucks bye the college, and bought two new coffee's for Little E and me for his arrival. So I met my objective, feel very sore and tired, especially my spine. Want to do a few more of these in the fall when it is cooler. Gotta pace myself though......damn sore!