Luke - 5.75

OTC All-Comers Meet 3000m Steeplechase, 10:35 (5th place)

I'd looked up my posts from the last two years when I did this race, and both times I said I went out too slow...so I went out fast in this one.  First lap was 73 or 74 I think, with three hurdles in it.  Maybe slightly too fast, but not terrible.  First water jump was pretty bad, landed with both feet pretty deep in the water.  Couldn't even imagine how I'd do any better, either.  You see people spring off the hurdle and land in stride, and I think I even have done it before...but once you're there it just seems impossible.  Got passed by a few people on laps 2 & 3...felt okay for the most part but was constantly dreading having to do the water jump again.  On the third water jump (4th lap, about halfway through the race) I landed on both feet pretty deep in the water, as usual, and when I tried to re-start running, the water held my feet and I fell forward.  Sorta rolled out of the fall so I only lost a few seconds, and also I think the crowd enjoyed seeing a fall.  Somewhere around lap three I felt my toe slipping over the sole of my shoe, and I thought the upper was just loose and that the shoe was falling over itself, but then I looked down and saw my toe.  The shoe had come apart from the front around to the inside, so there was a hole an inch or two long.  At some point it happened to the other shoe too, so for most of the race I was tensing my feet to keep them in my spikes.  There was a guy not too far in front of me from about lap 3 on, and I really tried to catch him in the last 500m.  I was picking it up as he was dying, and he was close enough that when I splashed into the water on the last water jump he heard it and looked behind him.  I made up a little more ground on the last hurdle, but there was still a lot of ground to make up.  I was able to kick pretty well and thought I'd catch him, but he looked back and gave a little kick of his own, which I might have been able to overcome but he also positioned himself in front of me so I couldn't pass.  We were finishing in lane 4 because there were lots of people being lapped or double-lapped, so going to one side of him wasn't enough--I'd have to go around him and re-pass him, and there just wasn't enough room.
So I was 11 seconds slower than last year and the year before (both 10:24) and I fell and my shoes died and I was so sore I could barely jog home.  Yay steeplechase!

Also there's video here, but since the race is so spread out they zoom way out and you can't really see anything ever, and they didn't even capture my water jump fall.  (I'm in bright yellow and go right to the front.)