Moving The Soddin Goalposts

Ah that newly aquired time honoured post Thanksgiving tradition the Brandywine XC 5K race.
I came in w/ slightly deminished expectations today given what I,ve lost in training over the past three weeks but rather than run up the white flag{NEVER!}I sought a different approach to the race,rather than my usual all out blitzkrieg from the gun I opted to take it out easy for the opening half of the race and once Maintainence Hill had been negoiated try to pick up the pace over the final 1 and a 1/2 miles.
From the gun I worked my way up to 10th as GPTC held 4th{Chuck}5th{Bob}and 8th{Jeff},after the first turn on the course I moved upto 8th and then 6th as the Blue and Red procession now went 4th thro 7th.
5.36 at the opening mile,I never had a pace goal in mind but along the creek Jeff and one other runner went by me,no need to panic,w/ the always uncompromising Maintainence Hill ahead I knew to hold my ground till the downhill.
As the first downhill presented it,s self I had company Brian O Driscoll moved along side me,Brian and I have had some great road race battles over the years so I was all too aware of his credentials.
12.11 at mile two a 6.35 mile I had a 2 second lead on Brian,it was important to retain 8th spot.....or so I thought!!!
Working off the slight uphill I tried to put some distance between Brian and me but he wasn,t going away w/out a fight and when he almost drew along side me as we were a quarter of the way into the long straight away alongside route 92 I found a second gear and put daylight between myself and him for good this time.
Jeff and his shadow were too far ahead of me to make any inroads it was now a matter of me verses the clock,pre race I,d said if I could go sub 19 mins for the first time ever here I,d be happy,alas it wasn,t to be,19.02.22 and 8th overall,my best ever finish here and my fastest ever time.
The misery than began to pile up,in 06 my team mate Adam finished 9th and just missed out on the prize money that only went 8 deep,last year I finished 9th and just missed out HOWEVER the organizers this year opted to only go 7th deep so yet again I got fecked out of prize money,and in keeping w/ three of the previous four years no luck getting my race tag pulled out in the post race drawing for numerous running apparel,gift certificates or gold watches,ah no big but I won,t deny the prize money issue left a bad taste in my mouth,granted 8th might,ve only been worth $10 but $10 is $10 especially when you,re paying $20 to enter in the first place.
Rather than dwell on the negative I chose to focus on the positives,a good race a course pr,and time spent w/ my team mates,we my not be the best team in the Mid Atlantic division but we have the best team mates a runner could ask for.
Eight miles for the day puts me at 28 for the week w/ my track workout w/ the relay squad on tap manana,it feels like SS Top Cat has righted it,s self,no longer taking on water and moving full steam ahead,keeping one eye out for icebergs and rough seas....eye eye captain!