Saturday morning at 8:30am I made my way to the old high school in town. I grabbed my paperwork from the front table. Looking around for a few friends that would be meeting me, I dropped my shirt from the race in the car and took a quick puff from my inhaler. After some light stretching and discussion with a few people, I went up to the start line. I was in pain, mostly from the respiratory infection. As the race started, I headed down High street in the middle of the pack. I wasn't concerned with place nearly as much as time. I was doing great for the first mile, right on pace. The second mile took me through the cemetery and up a rather large hill. This definitely took the wind out of me, and I slowed behind pace. The third mile seemed to drag on forever, but I remember looking back with a few blocks to go before the mile mark and seeing two people near me, then at the three mile mark they were still in the same spot. I found out later that they were closer, but moving much slower, and I had decided that I didn't want them to catch me. I finished the last .1 of a mile, rounding the corner into the school. The time was horrible. I was slower than the last 5k by about 20 seconds, even though I'd been training much harder. How could this happen? Then, more pain in my chest. I grabbed the inhaler out of the car and walked around the parking lot. After wandering into the school, I found I wasn't the only one who had done worse than expected, but that I still placed in my age group. I sat around for a while and then walked up to get my medal. Third place, men 20-29. Not bad, I guess...