What an emotional day.  Victory Junction Camp is a special place and I was in tears several times throughout the day as stories of campers and family and friends were told.  Wearing a "Dixon Racing" shirt designed by Sus, I was assigned bib number 144 at checkin.  Sus was assigned bib number 145 and thought it was special because Adam Petty's car number was 45.

I watched my daughter Grace and Matthew (who both attended VJ camp as children) in the Fun Run and prepared for my 5K race.  Sus had been diagnosed with bronchitis earlier in the week.  I thought my odds of a victory were improving when she used her inhaler just before the race.

My race strategy was to start 10 seconds behind Sus, catch up with her in the first mile and then run along side or in front until the end of the race.  Thinking she could not out sprint me to the finish line by more than 10 seconds. 

Grace was given the privilege of waving the green flag and the race began.  I passed Sus for the first time at the half way mark as she paused for some water and I kept running (that's a generous description of my pace).  With a little lead, Sus and I played cat and mouse for the remainder of the second mile as I would slow down (read power walk), she would catch up, I would pick up the pace (read jog) and create some distance between us.  Grace was standing about 1/2 mile from the finish to take pictures and she told me she could not see Sus behind me.  I continued down the hill through the tunnel and back up the last hill toward the camper cabins.  When I got to the top of the hill I could hear, but not see, Sus.  Rounding the last curve to enter the 200 yard home stretch, I slowed to a walk and waited for Sus to appear.  After a few seconds, she appeared sprinting and I immediately sprinted as well to finish just ahead of her in a photo finish. 

In a strange coincidence, I finished 43rd (Richard Petty's number) and Sus finished 44th out of 191 finishers.  We both finished in the top 3 in our respective age groups.  While neither of us broke 30 minutes (thankfully for me), I was 5 seconds ahead of Sus in the final results (not the ten seconds I thought I had waited at the start).

There are lots of pictures from Race Day in the gallery. Thank you to all who supported me, Team Dixon, and VJ Camp.  Thanks to your help, Team Dixon was the highest fundraising team exceeding our goal in helping send kids to VJ camp. 

Next up for me is my last hormone shot on October 14 and hopefully another near zero PSA test result.

Thank you again for all the thoughts, prayers and support provided on my prostate cancer recovery journey.  You made a difference.