~3.1 miles @ ~7.2 min/mi

MCRRC's "Capital for a Day" Brookeville 5k race is a fly-and-die. Mile splits from the GPS trackfile:

7:02 — forgivably fast, mostly downhill after inadequate warmup
7:05 — foolishly following two young ladies
7:38 — flameout, fading until the finish line comes into view

Christina Caravoulias works the registration table; Jim Farkas does data entry. Michele McLeod ran three miles from home to the starting line. She's planning a double-crossing of the Grand Canyon soon. I thank her daughter Sophie for helping me entertain Kate Abbott's sons a couple of years ago at Fountainhead Park on the Bull Run Trail during the Women's Half Marathon. My bib "666" is pinned upside down to avoid demonic jinxes.

"This portends a hill!" a young man tells me as we blast downslope near the beginning. "Don't say that!" I reply. Today the strategy of pushing hard works only for the first two miles, 14 minutes flat at the official marker (allowing 4 seconds to cross the starting line) . Two women run a bit ahead of me. Near the halfway point I overtake one and pant out pace info at her request. The other gal stays strong; after I finish in ~22:22 I congratulate her. Pete Darmody comes in ~5 minutes ahead of me. We chat briefly about physics and fallacies.

(official result: 47th place overall, 43rd of 101 males, 7th of 14 men 55-59 years old, 22:19 for an average 7:11 pace) - ^z - 2011-05-18