Wake Me Up B4 The Gun Goes Off!

It's been a while since I last had to get up at 6am for an 8.15am race......based off of Saturdays Manayunk Mile let's hope it's a while b4 I have to do it again!!!
Bad enough I have to "answer the call of the alarm" at 5am on a weekday let alone 6am on the weekend but since I'm at the mercy of public transit I knew I had to be up by 6am in order to snag a pair of breakfast sandwiches w/ my daily vitamins and morning cup of "rosey"{rosie lea=tea for those of you not familur w/ cockney rhyming slang} b4 tipping out the front door at 6.40am in order to cop the 6.48am #34 trolley over to 30th St.
17 mins to "kick my heals" while waiting for the 7.17am #9 bus to drop me at the Wisahickon transportation center 10 mins away which in turn was a stones throw from Main Street and Shur Lane where the race was due to start.

Arriving at 7.30am I now had 45 mins to get myself together,ran into a friend and teammate John Goldthorpe who was kind enough to allow me somewhere to drop off ye olde backpack during the race in his motor.
Easy 2 mile warm up along ther canal path that runs adjacent to Main St w/ John and some of the runners he coaches,now there was just enough time to get into my race gear,pin my race number to my vest,throw on ye olde trusty race bandanna and take my place at the starting line along w/ the 71 other willing combatants.

I'm no stranger to the road mile,b4 leaving London in 87 I took part in two Westminster Road Miles in 86 and 87 and ran a road mile in Allentown in 88 the day b4 a 10 mile road race.
In the mid 90s they used to have a Market St Mile as part of the 4th Of July celebtrations here in Center City and of course since 06 I've made a point of 5th Avenue Mile every year more or less.
A mile is a mile,4 times around the track{8 if you're running indoors on a 200m track!} and all of my road miles have been different,Westminster Road Mile was more or less a continuious circle,Allentown and Market St out and back,5th Aveune point to point,Manayun was out and back.

From the gun a group of five runners hit the front w/ youthful vengence,three were 23 two were 25.....like I said youthful!!!
Following them were two of my teammates Ken Barbee{51} and John Goldthorpe {36} then one more runner aged 29 b4 yours truly in 9th.
Missed the 400m mark and split but couldn't miss the 800m mark as it was the turnaround.9th in 2.27 so lets say splits of 1.13/1.14.
The first female runner overtook me as we made the turn but at 24 she should've been kickin' my behind,sadly after this point albeit for less than 800m I was in "no mans land" she put 8 seconds between us while I had a 5 second lead over the 11th place runner.

3.50 at 1,200m a 1.23 split which would ultimately be the difference between a sub 5 time,try as I might to get going in the final 400m the legs just wouldn't respond to the "fucking run faster!!!" message the brain was sending,a final 400m split of 1.16 to finish 10th in 5.06.
10th overall and second in the 50-59 age group is a fair mornings work.....the time of 5.06 however is sub par period muchless given the fact only  five days prior on the track at Swarthmore my 4.30.64 1,500m would equal a 4.48 mile.......

W/out wishing to reel off a series of excuses clearly such an early start was a shock to my system,how else can I explain only registering a 5.06 road mile days removed from a track 1,500m in 4.30.64?
Since I'm the excuse soap box,let's throw in this only being my second race in eight weeks since Indoor Nationals,maybe I just wasn't mentally geared up for "race mode" but isn't that why I give myself these races to iron out the kinks between now and Nationals and Worlds in the first place?,the schedule for the USATF NYC C'ships has yet to be published......I'm hoping for an afternoon/evening start time for the 800m in five weeks time I can tell ya!!!!!