Notes
This was the 4th race of the 2013 pub series. Ran this race last year as part of the pub series as well. Course has a lot of turns through residential neighborhoods, with a couple of small rollers and one more "significant" hill just past the 3 mile mark. Course has the ability to have some speed, but the turns and hills do slow it down slightly.
Race started off fast with Jake (1st place in pub series), TJ Unger (HFC / 2nd place in pub series), Danforth (HFC / 4th place in pub series), and Kenny Rayner (HFC) taking the early lead. The roads are pretty narrow, so I went out with them but backed off slightly after half a mile as I didnt want to blow up in the second half of the race. Settled towards my goal 5:20 pace and figured that I could hopefully have Danforth/Rayner come back to me later in the race.
Mile 1 split was pretty fast around 5:15. Shortly after the 1 mile mark, Pickleseimer (3rd in pub series) made his move and went by me. I settled in a few yards back of him and tried to make sure he didnt pull too far away. By the 2 mile mark (the person calling out the splits had me around 10:40 compared to the garmin split), Pickleseimer had moved his way into 3rd and I could start to see that Danforth/Rayner may be reachable. By the 2.5 mile mark, passed Rayner and by 2.75, was able to get by Danforth. I was tired but in control, and figured if I could just close like this, should be able to hold my position.
Just after the 3 mile mark is the challenging hill, which isnt terrible when thinking about a lot of other races out there, but still gives a good challenge mid-race. Pickleseimer probably had at least a 30 yard gap on me approaching the hill. I know he's a strong uphill runner, so I pushed up with him and then took advantage of the downhill to close the gap down to 10 yards. As we approached the out and back portion, was able to reel him in the rest of the way pulling even at the turn around cone.
At this point, I think we were both pretty cooked. Pickleseimer thought the finish line was near the turnaround point but quickly recovered. We ran side-by-side for the next 2/3 of a mile both trying to motivate each other to keep the pace. The advantage of the out and back during this last mile is the ability to see where the competition stands behind you. I could tell unless we blew up, we had a solid battle for 3rd place with no real danger of being caught by anyone else.
Pickleseimer just had more gas left in the tank and was able to beat me out by about 4 seconds at the finish line. Going forward, we should definitely plan to work off each other mid-race. It definitely helped having him out there, even if the "old guys" do continue to beat me.
Knocked off 2 more seconds from my 5 mile PR, besting Carver. Still feel like I should be another 25 seconds faster on this distance. Little dissapointed in mile 5 as well. The 0.09 "garmin error" had me at a good finish at least, but would have liked that list mile to be a little stronger.
On a side note, the course did feel a little long. Garmin had me at 5.09 for distance, usually it's "long" by about 0.01 per mile rather than the 0.02 today. Could be due to all the turns though, as I think someone mentioned there were about 17 on the course. Maybe just bad tangents on my part? Others thought the course was long too, but wouldnt be surprised if the turns really do add on that much more.
Pub series results will likely be updated later this week. Shouldnt be any change in the order, with everyone extending their leads slightly with the exception of me picking up a couple of points on Danforth.
Place Div/Tot Name Ag S No. City St Time Pace
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1 1/17 JACOB BARNETT 28 M 10 ARLINGTON MA 26:15 5:15
2 1/34 TJ UNGER 35 M 325 ROSLINDALE MA 26:41 5:21
3 1/39 GREGORY PICKLESIMER 47 M 327 NEWTON MA 27:04 5:25
4 2/34 CHRISTOPHER KLUCZNIK 31 M 134 SOMERVILLE MA 27:08 5:26
5 1/55 MARK REEDER 53 M 202 BRIGHTON MA 27:32 5:31
6 2/17 KENNY RAYNER 23 M 201 FRAMINGHAM MA 27:33 5:31
7 2/39 JUSTIN RENZ 41 M 206 MILTON MA 27:53 5:35
8 3/34 LEE DANFORTH 35 M 283 NORWOOD MA 28:03 5:37
9 3/17 ANDREW HOLMES 28 M 114 BRIGHTON MA 28:39 5:44
10 2/55 PAUL HAMMOND 53 M 108 LEXINGTON MA 28:42 5:45