Beaver Classic and Mac 15K

Two races this past weekend:

Saturday was the Beaver Classic. This is a college level cross country meet. It took place at Avery Park; an 8K ... 4 laps of a 2K course, 3 laps for the ladies. Guys and gals ran separately. It was fun to watch the ladies ... Penny ran and did great, finishing 2nd. Dave Bateham was running this too ... there were just a handful of us older dudes. Gaby, Guy and Todd were there to cheer us on, which was much appreciated. I was way out of my league here ... the only goal was not to get lapped ... I made a wager with Gaby, who was holding my keys, that she could have my car if I got lapped. No pressure. I went out as fast as I could but most of the kids left me in the dust in short order. The course was flat ... just one small rise. All on grass. I was working hard. My lungs still not 100% from a cold I was just getting over. As I finished the third lap I heard Guy holler "You're safe!", meaning that I hadn't been lapped and now couldn't be, which felt good. Really struggled with the forth lap. Managed to reel in a couple of lads at the finish. I finished in 30:12, 127 out of 149 :) Dave finished well too, also not getting lapped. It's a good thing it wasn't a 10K, otherwise we'd both have been lapped for sure. The best time was 24+, which means the front runner almost caught us before we finished our third lap. Todd posted some pics. Results are here.

The Mac 15K was Sunday. Good crowd for this. Guy, Dave, Todd, Gaby were all racing. Dave Zahler and Mike Rosling were there, but Will Swint wasn't ... thought he would be. Had a chance to talk to Linda about her getting into WS. Penny wasn't racing but seemed to appear all over the race course once things started ... don't know how she did that. I struggled for all of this one. Legs were heavy from the get go. Guy, Dave, Gaby and I ran together for a piece, then gradually parted company. The uphills were tough. Penny paced me for about a click ... I really appreciated that, needing all the help I could get. I had hoped to run all the hills, but had to walk a bit here and there. With a couple of clicks to go Todd fired past me on a downhill like a bullet, then Gaby passed too. I kept them in my sights all the way to the end, but didn't have the juice to reel them in. We finished in about 1:09+, Dave shortly after. Unfortunately, Guy suffered a foot injury and had to pull out ... bummer. My time was my worst ever for this race ... the price paid for racing Saturday ... but I had a blast.