Tour de Bayou 5 - Multiple Memorial Park Trails

Just less than 4 miles, 30:26?, no watch = no measurements

Today was the fifth and final session of the 2008 Spring Tour de Bayou. I had a strong showing, perhaps my best today, and finished eighth overall. I'll have to wait a few days to see my overall ranking, but I'm pretty sure it placed me as #3 in the open men's division. But at least a couple of the men in the masters division are faster than me, so I'm probably sixth overall without age grading or age divisions. My finishing positions over the past five races have been: 10, 9, 9, 9, 8.

Despite my long run yesterday and soreness that never seemed to pass from my Saturday 5K, I felt good when toeing the line this evening. I followed Jeff Eisele for the entire race today. He is faster than me, so I usually try to hang onto him as long as I can and then watch him pull away. He was a bit fatigued today, so that worked to my advantage. I passed him with about 800M to go, but I knew it wouldn't last. Maybe I could have pushed harder to maintain my lead, but my top end speed would not have been sufficient to put him away. He passed me back with about 100M to go.

The course was challenging, with plenty of exposed roots, dead logs, low-hanging branches, fallen trees, some significant ditches and very tight curves with narrow passings. I think it was my favorite course of the bunch, and I managed to escape without any ankle tweaks or othe injuries.

Post-Race core exercises -- I pumped the keg of Blue Moon for a few others and myself.

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TDLY (This day last year) - Rest