Race 10-113 Arts and Sciences 5k

December 12th, 2010
5k - 19:01 (chip), 22:08 (gun) - 43rd/185

This was one of the most uneventful races I've ever run. Many local fast people were at the Christmas relays at Lake Merced. It didn't look like my team New Balance Excelsior was going to field a team there, I still had an outside shot at winning my age group for the year in the DSE series, I had just run a 4 hour event the previous day, and the DSE race is cheap ($3 for members) so I decided to run the low-key DSE race.

I woke up late, got my stuff together as quick as possible and drove to the race as fast as possible. I got there late so I didn't start until 3:07 into the race. I spent the whole race catching people which is fun (I've done this before) but i didn't know how I was doing because i didn't know how late I started and I didn't wear a watch. After a mile I started passing people regularly and after 2 i was getting to the middle of the pack. As I was running I was thinking of people who wouldn't let me forget if they finished in front of me.

I didn't have to worry about Joe Connelly because he was the director, although I'm not sure if I remembered that. I caught Amy almost 2 miles in and figured she was running 23 or 24 minutes. I thought I saw Erika a little after the 2 mile mark and thought if she finished in front of me I'd never hear the end of it (either from her or Chikara), so I didn my best to catch up. I caught her with only a couple tenths left and passed another 4 more people before the finish line crept up on us. Mike Gulli and Noriko Brazely were not far in front but there was just no room to catch them.

There aren't many races I'd call forgetable, but this is certainly one of them. My time was mediocre at best, even with the long race the day before. My only hope is that this wasn't lifetime race 100. I know I'll cross that achievement within a few weeks of Christmas, but due to some previous years' results not entered into my master race list, I don't have an accurate running total. When i add them all in (later) I'll end up going back to find out what race turned out to be #100. After the race I went to Lake Merced to find out we didn't field a team, and my showing up wouldn't have helped enough, so I talked with some friends there who were competing.