1 - 2 - 3 in row, 3 Races in 3 Days for Dan H. and I

As per my previous post we ran the Matchstick 4 miler Friday night. Dan ran the other Subway race in Green Saturday. Last year this weekend I ran the Black River Buzz Anderson Memorial 5k and the next day the Columbia Station 1/2 where Pete Mycek and I met, but I had decided that I would not run the memorial 5k as 2 races in one weekend was plenty if not too much. So I woke up Saturday morning about 6:30 and couldn't sleep so I decided to get up and put down weed n feed on the entire yard and in the back of my mind thought if I get this done in time I could make it to the race in Spencer. I finished the yard before 7:30 so I decided to go. I changed and Marsha which by choice would sleep in decided to ride out there with me and cheer me on even though I would not be pressing for anything better than around 22 minutes I told her. We arrive with time to spare, did a mile warm up and got in line and talked to a guy in my age group that planned on doing under 22 minutes, great, but I let him go and hit mile 1 at a somewhat comfortable 6:48 and coming back past Marsha and the park entrance I told her the guy way out in front of me in the orange was in my age group and she says " go get him" so I speed up a little and catch him by mile 2 and talk to him for a second then go by and pick off a few more people and get back to the park with maybe a 1/4 mile to go and Pete meets me at the road and says come on pick it up so he pushes me hard coming in to the finish and my easy 5k ends up at 20:55 and 3rd in my age group.
Sunday morning arrives and again I don't get a very good nights sleep, I picked Dan H up at 6:45 and we head out to Columbia Station. Pete was there hoping to beat his PR of 1:39 and Dan was saying 8 minute miles was his pace for the day and the other of 4 MCRR members was Steve Combs going at a 6:30 pace.I was planning on helping Debbie Sheel to break 1:40 so I set my gps for a 1:39 1/2 which was a 7:28 pace and off we went. ZOOM, Debbie takes off and is pulling away fast so Pete and I ran together hitting almost every mile split for the first 4 at 7:25 to 7:30. Finally at 4.5 miles we catch Debbie and take a small lead on her, at mile 6 I slowed down to let her and Dan catch up and Pete pulled a bit ahead then. During those 1st 6 miles we noticed by our gps that the miles were to far apart and by mile 6 we had about 6.4, the rest later. I told Debbie she was still on target but we had 7 miles to go and I took off to try and catch up with Pete. It took me a 1/2 mile or so to do it but I got up next to him and and we looked out ahead and said let's catch the girl in the red before the race is over, somewhere between 10 and 11 we pass her and couple other fellas and come upon the guy I followed quite a bit last weekend. Pete and I ran with him til about 12.5 miles when he started to pull away and I had a tiny bit of leg calf cramp coming on so I told Pete to go get him and wow did he have alot left, Pete goes by him fast and beats him and finishes about 12 seconds in front of me, he took 2nd in our age group and I took 3rd. Dan and Debbie also both won their age groups. The down side of this race was it was 13.67 by my Gps and my time showed it. Everyone that had a gps agreed and had already told the race director. Debbie couldn't believe when she saw the clock at 1:48 but I told her to knock off 4 minutes for the over extra half mile still not putting her where she wanted to be. I crossed the finish line in 1:41 almost to the second the same time I crossed last year and I forgot to say this was a totally new course this year and a little easier than the old, I think I did around a 1:38 today at the 13.1 mark and Dan running those 8 minute miles finished just 30-40 seconds behind me if I recall right, no results up yet. I averaged 7:28 minute miles today. Time for a little rest on Monday and see how I feel about speed work on Tuesday