1:34:15

That's my time for the Manitou 15K. They don't use electronic chips, so that's my gun time, and I wasn't paying attention to anything but whose feet I was about to step on at the start, so I can't even estimate how long it took me to get to the starting line. Maybe twenty seconds - it wasn't that big a crowd.

Some were probably turned away by the thunderstorm predictions, but we only got a few raindrops during the race. It was raining pretty steady out last time I looked outside, but that didn't start until after noon sometime. Race conditions were cloudy and high sixties, with almost no wind. A little warmer than perfect racing weather, but pretty close.

For the first 5K I just hung with this group that seemed to be going the speed I wanted to go. The second 5K the crowd was pretty stretched out, so I just concentrated on breathing at the rate I thought would keep me at about a 10 minute mile pace. My watch verified that I was doing a heckuva job at it, though I was lagging a bit. The final 5K I pushed it a little more, though it started on a long upgrade - you probably wouldn't notice it in a car, so I waited on that until I got to the "top" before pushing. Then, finally I did a real kick for the last quarter mile, steadily accelerating through the finish line.

They probably haven't posted the results yet, but let's see anyway.

Nope. Not yet. They're supposed to post them on Apple Raceberry JaM by 6 PM.

I bet you're wondering how I feel now.

I've got a couple of raw spots - notably, one blistered toe, but other than generally tired legs, I feel pretty good. I mean, thank god it's raining and the yard work is all done for the week.

Oh, yeah. The floor drain in the basement is backing up so I've been hauling three gallon buckets of water from the clothes washer to the shower drain. Now we've knocked a hole in the wall between the laundry area and the bathroom and run a hose directly from the washer to the drain that works. I put the hole in a spot that wanted some work anyway, so no biggy there.

Ok, here are the official Manitou 15K results.  Apparently I lost a second: 1:34:16.