Sunday was a beautiful day for a race in Hampton, NH: It was sunny, in the upper 20s, and with a moderate breeze from the west. I got there early to get a good parking spot, and to just stay loose. This race had disposable chips, which are pretty neat. They are a paper strip that is spot-glued to the back of your bib. You take it off, form it in a loop through some of your laces, and seal the ends with a self-adhesive strip. At the end of the race, you tear or cut it off and throw it away. The only downside (from an RD's perspective) is that they cost an extra 50¢ per entrant, and that can easily add up to hundred's of dollars. The walkers started at 10:00 - an hour before the runners. Last year, the walkers had a half hour head start. I had a chance to catch up with the woman (Dot) who beat me last year, and her husband (Mark) who is converting from being a runner to a racewalker and would be walking this race. They are a great couple, and it was nice to see them again. We lined up, and I was ready to go, and then 2 seconds before the start, I noticed that my new Garmin had gone to power-save mode! Damn - I guess I don't quite have the hang of this thing yet. I had no time to fuss with it, so I started timeless. Dot, as usual, took off like a jack rabbit, and had a healthy lead after about a quarter mile. I took the time to get the Garmin back ready to work, and started it at the 1-mile mark. So I only missed my first mile split - not the end of the world. I didn't know all of the walkers, but suspected that Dot was my real competition. Let me rephrase that: I knew Dot would be ahead of me, but I didn't know if anybody else would be real competition. My goal was to at least try to keep Dot in sight, and I succeeded for the first 4 miles. Then, she was gone, and I was on my own. At times, I thought I heard footsteps behind me and wondered if Mark was going faster than he planned. But it turned out to be the sound of my own footsteps. The course goes by our house (at 5.75 miles), so DW came out and asked if I was OK and took a photo. Some of the course volunteers were still sitting in their cars when I went by (good think I knew the course!), and some of the water stops were barely set up. It was very weird being out on the course all by myself. It is one thing to be alone on workouts, but it is quite a different thing in a race! It wasn't till I was just about at mile #11 that the lead runner finally caught up to me. Part of my 'race' up to that point had been to see how far I could get before he came along. The breeze finally turned into a head wind in miles 11-13, of course. And, actually, I was glad to have a bit of a cooling breeze. I tried to mount a sprint to the finish, but there wasn't much left in the tank. Much to my dismay, my last 2 mile splits were my slowest. I was the first male walker in 2:29:09 (11:24 pace), but finished a distant second to Dot (who was just 2 minutes off her PB for a half). I had hope to be in the mid-2:20's, and so was quite disappointed with my time. The only good news is that I was about 3 minutes faster than my time at this race last year. My award was a bag with a shirt, a cap, a pair of socks, some Lindt chocolates and, best of all, an autographed book by the Hoyts! I was attacked by some nasty stomach bug on Sunday night that kept me in bed and with no ability to eat, and didn't start to emerge from it till Tuesday. We still don't know exactly what it was or what brought it on, but it was a heck of a way to finish off a race. Jay

Congrats on another good race, Jay. Marj says the main reason she ran with me on Saturday was so I wouldn't have to be alone all that way-being alone in a training run sure is different. Sorry about that bug but those distances wear down our immune systems.

Nice job PRing on that course. And second overall is not too shabby, as well as first man. Also, did I notice a mention of a photo somewhere?

Henry, you're right about the impact distance events can have on our immune systems. I still have the 'bug' 4 days later, so DW is making me go to the doc to make sure it isn't something serious. Ilene, I haven't seen the photo(s) myself, so I can't share them with anyone else yet. Sue, I can only imagine that they started the walkers a full hour earlier than the runners so that the slowest casual walkers wouldn't be so far behind everybody else coming in at the end. When I left the race, after the awards were handed out, there were still a few walkers coming in. Another option for them would be a limit on how long the course is kept open so the slower walkers would know that they would be out there on their own if they entered this race. This is a big issue with longer races that welcome 'casual' walkers, and there is no easy or right solution. Jay