PW.......Personal Worst!

Races are good, bad, and ugly. This one was incredibly ugly. My bride rode in with me with the promise of an IHOP meal after the race, and a chance to hang with Chris's wife AD. It had rained a bit in the afternoon, and was a nice 96 degrees and humid at race start. The race was run before a festival of lights parade. The run and parade was a one mile loop around the town square. It seemed that half of las cruces lined both sides of the street with thousands of kids. The kids all had bubble guns and light sticks and all kinds of light necklaces and bracelets. There were vendors with carts selling all this crap. There were also grills everywhere. There were about 250 racers running the race. Between the heat and humidity, all the horrible smoke smells, the uncontrolled spectators with kids and vendors weaving around the road, it was a freaking zoo. I got exactly half way on the 9 minute a mile pace I wanted to hold when the wheels started to come off and I faded to a final time of 29:04 for a 9:21 pace. I have real trouble with smoke, as it sets my asthma off. I was a wheeze bag bye the end. I quit marathoning when I couldn't finish in 4 hours or less. Quit the half when I couldn't go sub 2 hours. My last two 10K's were 57 and 56 minutes and change. When I can't get under an hour, that ends also. If my 5K goes over 30 minutes, then that is God's signal that my racing career is completely done......that is the first 5K with a 29 handle! A nice PW!
AD ran a 23:34 and was the women's 30-39 winner. Chris ran a 17:31 and won the race outright, and if he had had any competition, could have run faster. I was way out of the money in the 60-69 age group. Results aren't up yet, but I didn't recognize the three winners in my age group, and the winner actually ran a 19:48, which age adjusted, was faster than Chris! Hope to never see him again!
Enjoyed my time with my bride, Chris, and AD, and treated them all to a late night light meal at IHOP. Don't know when I will race again, but it will probably be in the fall when the heat has died down, and I can do some intense speed work, but the ugly memory of this sure left a bad taste in my mouth......