5th Avenue Mile,A Threepeat Of Sorts

My love affair w/ 5th Avenue Mile goes way back when the elite races would get shown on "Match Of The Day" a soccer highlights show shown in England on Saturday nights,for the few years it got shown I would often sit and dream of one day running the race......fast forward to 06 and my long overdue debut,10th overall in 4.46.modest origins indeed.
07 and 1st in 4.25.if the previous year was a dream come true just to run it then this was beyond my wildest dreams,win 5th Avenue Mile.
08 1st again in 4.12/4.17 depending on who's version you take{they gave me an official finish of 4.17 despite splits of 64,64,63,61....4.12 the issue being my crossing the second mat at the finish line}anyways it was a second 5th Avenue Mile victory and I began to plan a three in a row for this September.

Following my achilles tendon injury in May/June and my eight week layoff until July 27th frankly the starting line of 5th Avenue Mile much less the finish line seemed remote,however as each of the following nine weeks went by I started to believe that maybe,just maybe if I allowed myself to put my pride and ego to one side and just run the race and not be so caught up in trying to win it that it wouldn't be so bad after all,plus there was the oh so small matter of my mother,sister and brother in law flying over to New York,granted they weren't just coming for my race the plan for them was to visit New York as my mother had never been there but since it's not an everyday thing for them to see me race it was decided to make their visit around 5th Avenue Mile.

Obviously the injury had altered my plans coming into the race and so did the fact I arrived in Manhattan on Thursday evening to catch U2 at Giants Stadium,as a rule 5th Avenue Mile is a straight up and back trip the day of the race but for once this year I wouldn't have to get up at 5am to get to 79th and 5th Ave b4 11am.
My first good omen of the day dialing up "11 O Clock Tick Tock" as the first song on my ipod,my race was going off at 11am and as I walked up to the start of the race after dropping my family off at the finish the now obligatory "New York" also by U2 was on my ipod,after Thursday's killer show at Giants Stadium I was pumped.
I ran into my good friend Francis Burdett at the start and we warmed up together,I've known Francis since the 07 Indoor Masters Nationals and we've been good friends since,as time ticked down towards 11am I got ready to take my place at the starting line.

From the gun I was surprised to make my way to the front of the field and lead at 400m in 66 seconds,my lead didn't last long a pack of three runners Matt Chaston,Francis and my team mate Bob McGinty went by me but I held onto them and had them pull me along,2.17 at 800m,this was where my previous three years of experience would kick in,after 800m the course dips downhill slightly a chance to pick up momentum for the latter half of the race.
I forget what my 1,200m split was to be honest my main focus now was holding onto 4th,I was reasonably convinced the lead three were all 40-44 so I had a shot at the 45-49 title,not exactly what I wanted, but pre race I was aiming for that as my race target.
Again I missed my 1,500m split now my focus was getting to the finish line,I took a sly glance over my shoulder and knew I had 4th spot and crossed the line in 4.34 even splits 2.17,2.17,a far cry from last years 2.08,2.04 but last year I wasn't coming off an achilles tendon injury.
Post cool down the race results were posted,YES I'd clinched the 45-49 age group title,not quite the three peat I had hoped for but I'll take it and it was great that Eileen,Lynn and Chris got a chance to see me race.
Can I get back to overall victory next year?we'll have to wait and see, for now it's time to turn my attention to the USATF Masters 5k C'ships next weekend in Syracuse.