The 98th Thanksgiving Day Race - Cincinnati, Ohio.
39F, cloudy, light wind
I arrived at PBS around 8:15. Waited by the tent and chatted with folks until the group picture was taken. Then a short warm up jog around the stadiums. Men with an expected finishing time of under 38:00 can be seeded up front. As I am a notorious slow starter, I decided it's better to be at the front of the general mass start. The result: quite a few dishonest people still snaked their way in front of me, so I got boxed in a few times, and couldn't get in a good rhythm. Next year I will consider starting with the seeded runners. The first mile was clocked in 6:03, not terrible considering. As we wound our way through downtown and onto Eggleston, things finally opened up. I took advantage of this and the slightly downhill gradient to pick up the pace, posting a 5:47 second mile. Then came the first of three bridges, traditionally a strong spot for me to make up grounds. I did alright here, at least maintaining goal pace even with the climb at 5:59. As we headed towards the midway point water stations, my stomach started feeling upset. Not an achy pain or needing a bathroom type of upset, but more like the throwing up kind! Perhaps I ate too big a breakfast too close to race time? Anyway, I slowed down a bit and took a couple sips of water, which seemed to help. But my mile split dropped to 6:08 as a result. The 5th mile was thru Covington and climbing the Clay Wade Bailey to cross the Ohio. My legs were tiring a bit, posting a disappointing 6:10, and putting me 10sec behind. With just over a mile to go, my goal of finishing with an average pace of under 6:00 is now in jeopardy. So I picked it up on the bridge descent and held on for dear life till the finish line. There was not enough in the tank for a real burst at the final kick in, yet somehow I managed a 5:46 and then 1:17 for the final 1-2/10th miles! My splits were more up and down than I'd like, but it's a PB by :30 over
last year's race, and just under 6:00/mi avg. which was my goal :) Chris Reis won it again in 30:35!!! I placed 89th overall (out of 10,623), 81th/5218 males, and 16th/599 in my age group. A 98th percentile isn't too shabby at all! I still think 35 is an achievable goal, someday.
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