Notes
After how bad my body felt after last weeks 5 mile race I was worried about this race. I had apprehension going in about breaking down. Wednesday's workout with good mile speed really helped my confidence because I came out of it with the groin not feeling too bad.
Warming up today I felt like crap and my first thought was today was going to be a slow world of hurt. But after I stripped down to racing clothes and lighter shoes and doing strides I felt much better. I didn't wear a watch. I didn't want to get sucked into going to hard up the early big hills. My goal was to run a consistent in control effort based run until I hit the downhills and then i would take off. I have to say this was my best race since Moffat. I ran perfectly like I planned too. Actually I thought I was running slower than I was thinking I was around 6:50-7:00, but I heard a 5 mile split and I was at 6:40. I relaxed up the hill from miles 3-4 and not worry about the 7-8 people who passed me.
Miles 5 to about 6.5 was interesting with ice on the dirt road. here I maintained and once I hit the downhills I passed everyone who went by me earlier. I knew there was a hill near the end but it was tougher than I expected. Three hills in the last 1.5 miles with 2 steep ones in the last mile. I had passed 2 runners a half mile earlier , (on a hill - That's where I called on LH's wings :-) , and was chasing 2 more going into the final 400 when I saw Reno and he said, "Franc get that guy." He said it with such authority and command that it lit a fire in me and I went into my kick and passed both runners no problem. It's amazing how mental and emotional running is. Just a few words of passioned encouragement really makes a difference! (Thanks coach. ) I did the second half in 6:24 pace.
This brings back a memory of about 15 years ago at Stu's 30K. I was my car with Mark Perrone. We drove up to the leaders with about a mile left. A guy we knew, (Dick Marion) was about 10 seconds behind in second place. Mark rolled down his window and Dick said, "I'm done, I've got nothing left." Mark shouted at him, "Get going - you can catch him, run, run..." Sure enough Dick took off like a rocket and easily won the race!
Today's course was similar the tough Harvard 10 miler. I ran 2 minutes faster today than I did in Harvard so it's nice to have such an improvement. This was my first time cracking the top ten, (8th) in my division in a Grand Prix race since the Rhody 5K in 2006.
Reno ran much better than last week and was 2nd in our division, while Susan also had a great race finishing 11th. The weather held off nicely. The heavy rain didn't start until after we finished.