Our great week of spring running weather ended at, oh, about 7 a.m. this morning. This race started at 9 a.m. So there we were at the start, on the Jackson Park waterfront, with the wind blowing sideways and rain in sheets, and whitecaps on Dyes Inlet. Pretty nasty morning for a 5k. Small field, the Jackson Park races are truly just fun runs, most of the runners live in the Navy housing project surrounding the waterfront or work at the hospital nearby. Several of them had stupid St. Patrick's Day hats on. I was looking to get a few uptempo miles and see a few people I knew would be there. As usual, a pack of high school kids darted out ahead, then either turned around or faded at the half-mile mark. A pack of five of us settled in together, separated by 8-12 seconds or so. I sat back in fifth, just watching the young guys. There's a decent little climb about 3/4 of a mile in, followed by flat and another slight uphill, so I just stuck a consistent pace. At about the halfway point (I'm guessing, the course isn't marked and I forgot my watch), I picked it up a bit and pulled the pack closer together. Four of us stayed right together, with the leader maybe 5-8 seconds ahead, until a little past the two-mile mark. I left the pack pretty easily at that point, and kept the leader in sight. I had no idea of the course, and didn't want to do anything stupid. There were a few small up and downs, we were basically running laps of this housing development. We got to an intersection and the route took a right, heading back downhill toward where we could see the finish. It's a steep finish onto a park that's out on a point, and totally logical that the hill would just continue straight ahead to the chute. So I figured to go for it and make a run at the kid. The problem was that at the base of the steep downhill there was an arrow pointing back up another small hill to the right. They had to tag an extra 600m or so on to the race, and sent everybody around another small loop. That kind of killed some momentum, I slogged up the hill and then got into rhythm again. But I had lost a few steps on the leader, and couldn't get the kick back over the last 300m to catch him. Ended up 11 seconds back, 19:00 overall. Not too bad considering I ran without a watch or any knowledge of the course, and without the intent to do anything but a few tempo miles. And the lousy weather. So it was a good time. The kid ahead of me turned out to be a 9th grader, and the guy behind me was 15. I was standing by the board and this group of high school kids was reading the results, and one goes "That old guy took second." Ouch. Half mile cool down and that was it, the weather was awful and I have 15 on trails planned for tomorrow.
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