On the anniversary race for The Ringer, I should have been a hair faster today. Came in second place by four tenths of a second and while not happy about the results, it actually makes for a better story.
CT is by far the more competitive one of the two of us. She's rarely happy with her results and always wants to improve. One year after this race, CT and I were visiting The Ringer and she proceeded to notice that she had a stray hair on her leg (or maybe it was some stubble) and announced "Oh, I should have shaved my legs today, I would have been a hair faster". The pun got The Ringer laughing so hard, it's one of my fondest memories of him and that moment of us together.
New course this year, but included much of the old course. Haven't been doing any speed work lately and simply warming up, things felt sluggish. Even though it felt like I was doing a disservice to my Orange Crush This PR shoes, they felt better, so it was a last second decision to wear them instead of my normal everyday shoes.
Tick, tick, goes the start of the gun. The usual start with all the kids up front, only multiplied a little worse with more of the bottleneck of the trail to start instead of the road. About a quarter of a mile in hear one ask a friend "Are we about a mile in yet?". That was a signal I'd be passing him soon, but in the back of my head a little voice said "I hear you".
All the tricky spots were here, pavement, to wet grass, to wet plank decking. Mind immediately went to worrying about CT as I almost slipped in a few places and the Orange Crushes felt like they were on ice. Then the bouncy bridge, compounded by the fact it was earlier in the course this year so where it would normally be thinned out more by the time reaching it in years past, this year felt like a couple times my knees were going to hit me in the chin. CT is gonna love this (sarcasm)!
About a mile and half in is when I got passed. Looking, couldn't be positive it he was in my age group or not, but knew it was a danger. My body felt as though it was giving maximum effort, it was already feeling tired, and it wasn't a good idea to attempt to speed up. He didn't really pull away, so at this point we were going at about the same pace. There were a few times the lead probably got twenty or thirty feet. Goal was to keep it within striking distance until the home stretch. In the straight away, pulled almost even at the three mile flag. About that time he heard me coming and started to speed up. Not sure if I could have out kicked him to the end, but the fact he picked up the pace, I decided I didn't want to even try to win cheap at the end, just wanted to see if he'd also speed up and called it a day.
The final results listed a 0:00:00.4 difference between us. To date, that has to be closest race I've ever had coming down to the finish line. Can't say I like coming in second in this of all races, but next time I'll shave and will be that hair faster!
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