I was late for the race. My mental clock off by an hour on this morning. Runners going by as I drove into the Black Swan Country Club. Great! As soon as I had the key out of the ignition, Krissy ran to get my bib number and pins. I removed my cargo shorts and pinned the number on, and walked over to the start line taking off with the clock now at eight minutes. I think the race had three waves that started taking off at 9:00.
I was rather calm as I took off. I knew I could rely on the chip time so I did not stress. After breathing hard after a minute of running, figured pace was right. I caught the back end of the 3rd wave less than a half mile in on the warm sunny day. Mile one passed by 6:52. Mile two dropped down with a big drop so that mile dropped to 6:31 but what goes down must come up. I took a turn and saw a string of runners walking up. I chugged up very slowly. Tough climb that was sure to impact the overall pace. After recovering, I continued to pass some runners but less frequent than the 2nd mile. The last mile was 7:33. I rolled into the finish line with a watch time of 21:51 and 3.13 measured via GPS. Official time was 21:47, 7:02/mile pace. No time to reflect what could have been if I started with the race.
Covid Comeback 5K 2021 Results
Dave Dunham (13th at age 57) offered to take me out for a 4 mile cooldown of which included a visit to the Baldpate Fire Tower. I could not pass it up. We were able to squeeze through the locked gate to access the tower. Got to admit, not really being afraid of heights, every flight of steps up got my attention. It helped to look straight ahead and up. Going down was easier. Good views at the top made it worth it.
Sorry you missed the start. Glad you enjoyed the warm-down.
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