Runs Like a Welshman?

For our July 4th race Jan and I did a 5k uberthons.comUberthon event in Beaverton, Oregon. We got lucky with the weather as it was only 60 degrees at the 8:30am start time. It was a fairly small race with 363 participants. After traveling 3,200 miles in 10 days with a mix of running, weights, 2 swim workouts, lots of walking and a couple of hikes in the hills we didn't have huge expectations for finishing times.
Ten things about this race;
1. Nice flat out and back course making getting lost even hard for me.
2. Start and finish at same place, nice for spectators.
3. Electronic timing at start/finish.
4. Didn't wear Garmin, figured mile markers would be enough for a short race. There were no mile markers.
5. 20 port-a-johns! For just 300+ people! Many NY races don't have that many for 1,000 runners.
6. Not knowing the city well I picked a cross street that during my warmup run took about three minutes to get to from the finish line. I knew coming back in the race I would be pretty tired at this point, but having a landmark to know the slowest it would take me to finish would be helpful.
7. A weird start. The announcer let about 70 people go first then made the rest of us wait 8 seconds before going. It didn't matter with the chip timing but if you were actually racing a person or for an age group award it did make a difference.
8. I sprinted in the last 250 yards trying to beat a guy who appeared to be in my AG. Turned out he was one group older, but my kick still worked.
9. Most results were up in a few minutes, Jan's took awhile. We walked away with 2 third place awards though! Two hours later I checked the complete results and discovered I was 4th, not 3rd, by three seconds. There was no one within 3 seconds of me at the finish. I think this may have had something to do with weird start and I just never saw the guy? Oh well, still had a good race, running almost the same time I did in my 5k in Rochester in late June. Jan also ran well 8:57 pace.
10. Our 3 year granddaughter ran her first race 1/4 mile, which was cool. She also got to hear the bear (me breathing during my sprint).

The "running like a Welshman" part? That's what my son-in-law said my running style looked like, which I am taking as a compliment! http://youtu.be/8kG9j5Io6yw