~3.75 miles @ ~10.4 min/mi

Master sandbaggers Ken and Wayne greet me before today's club race on a new course around Lake Bernard Frank. Christina and Robin and I walked it a week ago, so I know what to expect: hills! The Meadowside Nature Center features some exceptionally cute babes today. I take cellphone pix of two, Kent and Anita's children Michael and Andy, while I admire Anita's new Nikon D40x camera. Kent is racing; Anita is the photographer.

Wayne is playing a deep double-sandbag gambit: he tells me that he feels great today and plans to run fast, knowing that I will disbelieve him, and thus will be even more suprised when he blasts away from me. (I wonder how much he is really keeping in reserve?) Ken takes it easy, recovering from his JFK 50 miler and other running in recent weeks. We jog together and banter for the first half mile; then I take the lead during a hill climb. At the aid station I pause to tie my shoe, then trot on across the dam that forms the southern end of the lake. Wayne blasts past as I approach the turnaround; he's already at least a minute ahead, and goes on to finish at an overall sub-10 min/mi average pace.

Ken is not far back of me when I see him after I make the turnaround. I slow a bit and have to walk some hills in the second half, but keep pushing and finish in 39:51 for — drum roll please — 6th out of 7 in my age/sex group, at an average 10:42 min/mi. I lie down on the ground near the finish line to catch my breath. Wayne observes, "For someone as pitifully slow as you are, you did pretty well today." Thanks, buddy!

(correlates: TruckNumber, 2007-01-01 - New Year's Resolution 5k, FourPiFeedback, ...)