Excelsior St. Patrick's Day 5K: Notes of an aging runner.

The weather was damned near perfect. As we crossed the little bridge over St. Alban’s Bay on Minnetonka Boulevard I could hear the runners sigh along with me. In front of us stretched the hill. About a third of a mile of uphill running. I thought we would be running the trail, never considering the logistics. So I cut my stride and slowly worked my way op the 2 part hill. Then we turned left into Greenwood and ambled through the rolling streets, to eventually return to Excelsior and a finish passing Maynard's. I overheard a man sy to his daughter “go ahead take off, so you can break 30 minutes”. This was very disheartening - and proved to be a bad estimate. We were well ahead of that pace. But I sill slowly, almost trudged, into the finishing arch in front of “The Dock”. I was beat by the first hill and had just struggled my way in. Still I did OK. My finish was unnoticed because a local VIP raced passed me to the blare of the Public Address heralding her finish. I had forgotten to drop my camera at the finish so the only photos I took were of competitors eating free range bananas and drinking a the courtesy brew. Such is the life of the over 60 runner. I clipped a minute off of my earlier 2015 5K....OK, about 50 seconds. Thanks to everyone for a well run and accurate event!