~5.5 miles @ ~9.3 min/mi

Brrrrrrr! Snow flurries begin as the Seneca Slopes XC race is about to start. It's a hilly trek through the woods, over rocks, roots, and a few muddy swales. At mile 4 I slip and fall; fellow runners pause to check but I'm ok and wave them on as I stagger to my feet, check knee and hand but only find slight scrapes, pick up my cap, and carry on with a loss of only a few seconds.

Arch-nemesis 6-year-old Jason Parks beats me handily today, by more than a minute, as the official results list me first of seven in the 60-64 year old male cohort, 57th place overall behind 48 men and 8 women, with 153 total finishers.

The Garmin GPS and iPhone Runkeeper roughly concur on route and pace.

Approximate splits from the Garmin: 9:01 + 9:18 + 9:42 + 9:34 + 9:18 + final fraction kicking it in at 8:39 min/mi pace.

Many thanks to kind friend Barry Smith for driving me to/from the race!

(photos by Hai Nguyen — at mile ~1.5 and climbing the stairs to the finish line)

^z - 2013-12-27