Patience Pays off for Raybuck in Harriers Last Hurrah 8K

Start line (bright blue/black stripe, center of photo)

Raybuck patiently paced himself through the 1st 1 to 2 miles while numerous competitors went out hard, but the tactic paid off in the end, garnering a 47th place overall finish out of 111 runners (all men), and 10th out of 39 in a very competitive 50 to 59 year old age group.  As evidence of the competitive nature of the 50 to 59 crowd, Raybuck would have placed 7th in the 40 to 49 year old group!  And some of the competitors in the 50 crowd placed high (as high as first) in their age groups in the recent National Masters 5K race held in October.

At 1.5 miles.

Raybuck briefly questioned his tactics as roughly 30 runners made their way by him during the initial mile, putting him in the rear part of the pack, in an estimated 80th spot by the mile mark.  However, hearing the split time of 6:20 at the mile was just what I wanted, and I felt good, so my confidence rose (to some degree).  After a long downhill during the 2nd mile (which would later of course translate to a painful uphill), Raybuck crossed the 2 mile split at 12:38, and 3 miles slightly slower at 19:10, but had begun methodically re-passing the masses who by their greed, went by him in the first mile.  The 4th largely uphill mile was slow for everyone, and was a 7:10 for me, passing the split marker at 26:20.  The final mile (or 0.97 miles if this was truly an 8K), was my best, in 6:07.  If this was an 8k, then the converted mile time would be approximately 6:16, still the fasted of the race for me. I passed another handful of runners in this final mile, including a couple fellow 50 to 59 year olds.

Uphill, 3.5 miles.

Overall, a great day!  In 2003, I ran a 4 mile race here in 25:17 (6:19 per mile), so running about 6:30/mile for 5 miles 8 years later is not at all disappointing!

Raybuck cuts loose with 500 meters to go!

Next up, a flatter, faster 5K road race on December 3, although this race can be slow if the 2 miles of roads in the cemetery are snow covered!

C'mon Harry!!  Go Striders!  By the way, I wrote my team name as Dr. K Striders on the application, but unfortunately, as the only Strider in the race, they removed the name and put UNA (unattached). Should I register a protest??

Mark

Full results here.