Sometimes Old Men Still Rock!

This was an inaugural race weekend that included a marathon in Elpaso on saturday, and one in Las Cruces on sunday. There were about 140 folks running the marathon and half (most of them walkers), and 35 folks running the 5K. As I was warming up, I noticed that the two guys who each beat me in my previous two 5K's were there, so I started out with a bit of an attitude. Now in a recent running article, the author was noting how younger runners don't really compete, they fun run, support a cause (good thing), and treat the occasion more as a social get together that they can breakfast after. Nothing wrong with this, but when you get the old geezers together, they try to pound each other into the ground. They are friendly and supportive after the event, but will try and beat you up along the way. So today, when the gun went off, I tried hard to stay with my two competitors. They were running together and I caught them at the turn. In the days of my youth, especially in my mid thirties when I probably ran 100 5K's all around 18 minutes, once I caught you, you're day was over. Not so now. These two guys came back to me with a half mile to go, and one got ahead of me, and the other fell of the pace. With that quarter mile geezer sprint, I couldn't catch him but came up on the shoulder of this young bitch nice young woman who was the female leader. She outsprinted me. So The first guy in the age group was 7th overall, the first female was 8th, I was 9th, and the other geezer was 10th. The 6 folks ahead of us were all high school cross country runners. It was perfect weather today, with beautiful shadows in the mountains, and my time was 26:49 or a pace of 8:37 per mile. I would need to drop 40 seconds a mile to get back to the grand master flash time of two years ago......don't see that happening for a good while if ever!
House is all patched and meshed and ready for the stucco once it arrives. The plasterers are ready once the 20 plus buckets come in......