Notes
Other than the Tavern-to-Tavern 5K a month ago for the pub series, this was my only run since September 11th when I got sidelined with the tendonitis. After the Tavern race, felt a lot of pain in my shin so was a little nervous about today. Hadnt gone back to the doctor yet, so kind of made a solo decision to opt-in for the race. Paddy's is the 6th and final pub series race. Through the first 5, I was holding into 5th place for the final money position in the series. My opportunity to go after 4th place was thwarted by the dismal injured performance at Tavern, so today was focussed on hanging onto 5th place. Going into Paddy's, had a 12 point cushion, which I wasnt sure if it would be enough. Six weeks of no running could result in anything, perhaps 17+ minutes for the 3 miler or maybe slower, I didnt know what to expect. The elliptical and biking would help keep me in some sort of shape, but would I lose all my speed?
Spoke with Joe before the race noting my concern about being able to keep up with the pack and got some good advice to not try pacing off pre-injury times. Since I hate significant positive splitting, the advice made sense and once the gun went off, backed off the lead pack which mentally was tough to do. Over the first mile the main group pulled away and even early on I could tell I was working hard just to keep this pace. Springing ahead with the pack would likely have just resulted in a painful blowup mid-race.
As we went through the first mile, separated into a smaller pack with me, Justin Renz (HFC master), and some other guy I had never seen before. A quarter mile later, seemed like we were falling off pace (and the wind was no longer in our faces) so I decided to move up and maintain the same effort. Surprisingly, I think this was the first race where I never looked at my watch mid-race (other than the mile markers), just went off feel instead.
Second mile felt tough and the runners ahead just got further out of sight. Was just waiting for the group behind me to catch up to me, but never happened. Came through 2 miles around 10:40 (unofficial split person calling out times) and just tried to maintain pace. Basically ended up running the second half of the race in no-man's land in a pack of one.
Needed to keep Andrew Holmes (HFC - 6th place in pub series going into Paddy's) within 12 spots of me to hold onto 5th. Ended up finishing the race in 7th place in the race to lock in 5th in the pub series. Andrew Holmes walked the race after having run Chicago last weekend and not wanting to race so close to the marathon, but ended up being a moot point anyway with the 7th place finish.
Good performance in the pub series for SRR, taking 1st (Jake), 3rd (Pickleseimer), and 5th. Very low SRR turnout this year, with pretty much just me, Jake, Pick, and Joe representing.
Best of all, no pain at all during the race. Think I'm ready to start easing back into running. Doctor's appointment tomorrow hopefully followed by physical therapy.
Obviously far from PR pace today, but pleasantly surprised given the lack of running over the last 6 weeks. Even more surprising is that I managed to beat last year's time (one week post-Chicago) but 1 second. I'll take it.
1 1/217 M3039 15:12 15:12 5:04 T.J. Unger 35 M 2105 Boston MA
2 1/199 M4049 15:30 15:29 5:10 Gregory Picklesimer 47 M 1620 Newton MA
3 2/217 M3039 15:39 15:39 5:13 Lee Danforth 35 M 2102 Norwood MA
4 1/152 M5059 15:41 15:41 5:14 Mark Reeder M 2090 Brighton MA
5 1/81 M2029 15:43 15:42 5:14 Jacob Barnett 28 M 1626 Arlington MA
6 2/81 M2029 15:53 15:52 5:18 Rory Jenkins 28 M 1683 Sagamore Beach MA
7 3/217 M3039 16:08 16:08 5:23 Christopher Klucznik 31 M 1061 Somerville MA
8 2/199 M4049 16:22 16:21 5:27 Justin Renz 41 M 386 Milton MA
23 6/199 M4049 17:12 17:10 5:44 Joe O'Leary 45 M 1296 Medford MA