I got sole, they're super bad

So when I was looking at the race calendar this spring I though, you know what would be fun to do the day after a 50k, drive to the center of the state of Wisconsin and run a 5 miler.  The Pitsville Heart and Sole is a flat, fast, road race held on July 3 every year.  I have been going for a few years now and didn't want to miss the 25th annual race for something as dumb as running a 50k the day before.  The legs were barely working when I hopped in the car that morning, and walking down stairs was not happening without a hand rail.  This would make for exciting racing.  I did a couple strides before the race just to see how the legs would handle speed, and it wasn't a pretty sight.  I decided I would not push it, just tuck in and see how the race progresses.  My brother, friends Jeff, Chris, Rob, and Heather, were all racing too, so if I decided to just jog it out there would be plenty of people to run with.  Well when the gun went off that nice flow of adrenaline quickly calmed the aching muscles and I tucked in with the second group of runners.  Nearly everyone in the first group turned off at the two mile race cutoff, and I found myself in 4th.  This would have frustrated me in other years, but was better than I expected this year.  I was caught by a couple other runners and ended up settling in with a group of 4 behind 4 more leaders who we weren't going to catch.  I worked on keeping the turnover high and the effort relaxed, and in the last mile poked ahead just a bit to keep the other guys honest.  One of them got away, I tucked in with a second, and we dropped the third.  That second runner got away with a quarter mile left, so I settled in and took 7th, good enough for a second in my age group.  This kind of marks a turning point in my athletic career.  I used to always have the goal of not being beat by anyone younger than me.  I was training hard enough that my additional years of maturity and experience should keep me moving up.  Now my goal had become not to be beat by anyone older than me.  My youth, training, and enthusiasm would have to hold against the additional experience of my competitors.  I've been trying to train less this year, not always effectively, just to see what impact it has on my racing, and so far I've been pretty pleased with my ability to stay in the mix in most races, even though I feel like I'm riding right on the edge of crashing out more now than in the past where I just couldn't maintain the pace needed to move ahead, period.  One more race entry coming up, then a couple weeks away from the race scene, probably.