Had To Put My Head Down And Just Hammer!

I registered for this race a week ago, based on being able to drive my bud Chris in, and have the two of us race it with some of his cross country kids. Yesterday evening he told me he hadn't registered (was going to race day register), and that he and his kids had run a two mile track race together that morning sponsored bye dunkin' donuts. So on saturday evening, while we were drinking wine and eating dinner at June's, he told me he was bailing on me. Rat bastard. So, I got up this morning and headed to centenial high school in Las Cruces for the race. The field was particularly large. There was a team of more than 40 runners from El Paso that were all dressed the same and running in support of this pancreatic cancer charity. The race itself was headed bye a family in support of pancreatic cancer due to the loss of their youngish son to it. Perfect weather and a great turnout for a wonderful cause....
Since the field was geezer filled, I knew that I was actually going to have to race. The course was the same as the course for the 5 miler I had run there in the fall, with the obvious exception of the turn around being sooner. We headed east on level ground, and then went downhill to the south. At the one mile turn around, I had caught three geezers, and we started north up hill for a mile that included two large climbs. I am generally a weak boy on climbs, so I just concentrated on the two geezers from El Paso that were running together and maintained contact. One finally cracked and started walking a quarter mile from the turn around on the final peak, and I caught the other just as we turned bye the two mile marker heading back down to the finish on the track. With my long legs, I generally feel an advantage on downhills, so I just put my head down and hammered as hard as I could. I never looked back for fear of being caught, forcing myself to just push. We turned west into the school grounds, and at the final turn onto the track, I took a peak over my shoulder, and there was absolutely no one. The course ended up being two tenths long according to the garmin, so based on my pace, I would have run in the high 26's on a regulation course. All in all a good day. And then, as the final icing on the cake, I got Lei'ed!