76. Sam Spritzer 0:21:15 0:06:50 5/M50-54 63/M

It actually should have been 21:12, at least according to my Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS watch. Either way, I’ll take it being my first PR in 3 months. With the cool weather coming, I expect there will be many more. Four for the year, and four more to go to match last year’s eight.

The race itself was on a beautiful cool, cloudy slightly humid evening right along the Niagara River in Tonawanda. It was one of the more well attended race most likely because of its awesome post-race party in the parking lot of Mississippi Mudd’s, a very popular family waterfront restaurant. The course starts straight with a slight upslope, flattens out and then goes into a gradual downslope on the bike path. After exiting the bike path, it becomes a somewhat more steeper upslope before it turns into a long downslope and finishes on a long flat. I was really shooting to sub-21 and when I turned the corner at the 2.92 mile mark, the clock had just turned 20:00. I gave it all but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Hopefully, with the cooler weather coming, it should be a foregone conclusion.