Training in Montana

Being youngest in an age group is nice. Not in great shape, but nobody showed up and my effort was good enough for 1st AG. I ran my race, which was nice for a change. Rainy day, 52F at start time and light rain. It dumped in the night time, then lightened up a bit before the race. My initial plan was to run the course again to warm up, but because it was raining I hit the Y to warm up, which isn't far from the start line. Hit the bike for 1 mile, then the water rowing machine for 90 seconds (that is hard), then ran 1 mile at a fairly slow pace. It was getting close to the 8:15 am start, so went and changed and decided on singlet with arm warmers, thin gloves, headband, compression socks, running shorts, and long-billed running hat with nearly clear sunglasses. Perfect combination. Parked halfway between start and finish, so wore long sleeved shirt to walk to the start. Moved right to the front of the start line, took off the long sleeved shirt and rolled it up to tie around my waist. Gun went off on time, and the start is downhill and I took off but not too fast. Faster than I thought, or the GPS was wrong, but I hung back of a guy older than me. A lady around my age smoothly cruised past both of us and I was jealous. She won the Master's womens division by a large margin. After the initial downhill the rest of the first 3/4 mile is flat, then a big uphill that I run regularly. It slowed all of us down. Then 1/4 mile flat, and another 1/2 mile of up. I was feeling pretty good, but breathing hard yet controlled. I continued with a solid pace, about as fast as I could maintain, and kept that up and most of us picked it up the last mile. With 3/4 mile left a guy close to my age passed me by 5 steps. I was waiting for the last 1/2 mile which is very downhill. I picked up the pace, as did others, and once we hit the flat (maybe 1/4 mile left) I picked it up more, and about 150 yards out I started sprinting. Passed the guy who had passed me, and finished strong. I could've picked up the pace sooner as my legs still had a lot left in them at the end, but I'm still happy. I was absolutely soaked at the end, as was everybody. A steady drizzle throughout, and lots of puddles we ran through. I didn't know how I did, but after collecting free stuff from vendors, walked to my truck, drove to the Y and cooled down, then checked results online. It showed the Men's Masters winner had a time of 22:15 (which seemed slow) and my time was faster than that, but I couldn't find me in a search. I hurried and showered and went back to the finish line to argue with someone. I had my number on my shorts, not my chest, so I thought they may give me grief, even though that's how I've done every race. Turns out the Master's winner was 19:42 or so, but I did win my age bracket. Not hard when you just turned 45 and it was 45-49. That worked in my favor 5 years ago at a 5K, so glad it worked for me even though I am not in decent shape. Good enough, and I'm happy. 

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2781686542