Stagecoach Robbery & The Virtual Mile ~ Race Report

As part of a new BarCon tradition, I participated in the 1-mile fun run aptly called The Stagecoach Robbery to go with the western theme this year. Bar ran along with Sweetie. Buddy opted to stay in the park on his scooter to cheer us all on with DH, Bef and B! As I had an opportunity to run sans-jogger, I decided to do the Virtual Mile a week sooner than most.

Kong took a few minutes to describe the course for a few of us, namely myself, were new to the race (I was the timer last year and failed miserably at the task). I recalled though, that Kris zipped through to the finish in approximately 7 minutes and I thereby opted to use him as my pacer.

We took off and as was expected, several of the younger runners took off right away. I tucked in behind and maintained pace ... picking them off one by one. Within a quarter mile, Kris and I were in the lead. I glanced at the Garmin and it was clear that if I stayed strong, I would achieve my goal of coming in under 7 minutes.

As we approached the finish, I started to sprint hoping to overtake Kris at the line, but he looked behind his shoulder and he, too, picked up the pace. When I crossed the finish, though, the Garmin said .89 miles... not a complete mile so I kept going. The last 1/1o of a mile was slower than what I had averaged earlier but I still managed to reach the 1 mile mark under 7. Garmin read 6:58 for the lap (I kept the timer on to get Sweetie's time... 10:32).