1st Place!

For the 20 years I ran races in the large metro area of Cleveland, I won many age group awards, and in two smaller races finished 2nd overall, but was never 1st. When I retired and moved to Mesquite Nv, I joined the smaller racing community of St. George Utah. After retiring, I worked with a physical therapist to rehab my back, and began training more intensely. My back held up for 3 years, before I needed my 2nd back surgery. At the age of 52, I scored a 1rst place win twice in two weeks.
In the beautiful Valley Of Fire state park, they hold a half marathon, marathon, and 10K. For their inaugural year, a half and 10K only. The field was only 135 folks, and no one knew who was running the half or 10K. The initial 3 miles is into strong winds, and rolls painfully up hill. I ran a spectacularly painful uphill first mile, and was behind 2 guys running together. At the turn, I started down by myself watching to see who else turned. It took about a quarter mile for 3 other runners to turn. I realized I had a half mile lead. So I put the shit hammer down and just redlined all the way to the finish. In the last half mile, I kept turning around but I was alone. My first 1rst.
Two weeks later there was a 5K in mesquite with a field of about 50 runners and one wheelchair athlete. Half the runners were from 2 high school cross country teams. The course ran mildly downhill, turned onto sand to cross a small wooden bridge, and returned. I had run the course the night before. I went out with a pack of 8 cross country kids. We were all behind the wheelchair athlete. As we got to the turn, I noted that the wheel chair athlete was struggling approaching the small wooden bridge. Knew I couldn’t be behind him. Sprinted as hard as I could and got to the bridge about 2 feet ahead of him. He hit the bridge and got stuck. Couldn’t get his front wheels from the sand. When the pack of CC runners got to him, they had to lift him in his chair onto the bridge and let him across. By then I was close to 1.75 miles and the race was over. I won 1rst by about 2 minutes. 2 of my friends were amazed I had won. One of the  CC coaches went ballistic on his kids for letting a 52 year old man beat them, and they tried to explain about the wheelchair, and all he said was, he knew what to do, didn’t he.....hahaha! So those were my only first place wins ever....