3rd place at the CLFC prediction run

I ran the CLFC prediction run this morning and I wanted to win it sooo bad. My fastest times are always more predictable than an average time, so I picked 51:00, which corresponds to 8:30 m/m. And most of the time on my standard training runs, I don't even wear my watch, so who knows how fast I'm going. At the end, I finished at 50:37.

I started out with the rabbits, running with Jason and Theresa and Kevin and Coach Peter. When I'm racing and they're just training, is probably the only time I'll be running with those peeps. Also, I overheard that Peter also predicted 51 minutes, and he trains a lot more than me, so I figured he'd know his pace pretty well.

Each of us run those trails frequently so we know where the mile splits are, and Jason called out what he though our pace was, and he was being so accurate, saying 7:59 and 7:55, so I thought he must be right. On the other hand, Peter said later that he wasn't sure if he was joking or not. The group broke up at Pine Gully Park since nobody really knew the exact route to take and everybody wanted to go a different direction. I stayed with Peter since he was running the route which I always counted as the 6 mile route.

I think I ran a positive split, and it felt like I was fading in mile 4 and 5. Peter dropped back to offer encouragement to somebody and caught up to me with about a mile left. Coming into the end, I felt like we were a little on the slow side of 51:00 so I tried my best to pass Peter so I'd be slightly closer to 51:00 than he was. He knew I was racing him since he didn't let me go. I think he had a lot left in the tank. In the end, we were a little fast and since he was faster, I was closer to 51:00 and got third place! Whoo hoo!

With no visible timing methods, Jim and Hung ran within 13 seconds of their prediction time, and all three of us got a 25$ giftcard to the Runner's Link.

Keith.