For those of you who read the dailies, you're probably tired of hearing me whine about this race last year.  I had a bad race last year and ran a 1:53:46.  Sure it's still not a bad time for a HM, but my PR was 1:35 so that was a tough result to swallow.  Today I just wanted to prove to myself that that was a fluke, and to see where my fitness is.  I've been training well and was anxious to put that to work.

Result was a 1:39:39.  This was a 14:07 improvement over last year.  4:50 short of a PR.

66/473 overall

19/88 M40-49

This is considered the toughest HM in Connecticut, and we have a number of them.  Lots of hills in this race.  You are either going up or going down.

The race is in rural Connecticut, through cow country (yes, I yelled "MOOO" at the cows) and about 1.5 miles on icy dirt roads (I saw two people fall).  My taper for this race consisted of going easy yesterday.  I trained through this.  Throughout the entire race, I was just trying to save my legs for the uphills.  Of course, try as you might, those downhills suck the life out of your legs too.  I passed a guy on a downhill at mile 9 and told him I didn't know which was harder, the ups or the downs.  I felt good from the get go and really had to dial it back so I didn't blow up.  Last year my race fell apart at the halfway point.  Today I kept taking stock of how I felt, and once I got up that hill at mile 8, I knew I was going to be ok.

My splits are kind of all over the place, but you can blame the hills for that.  Overall I thought I ran a good steady race.  I did fade a bit the last two miles, but they are all uphill.  Going into this race, I thought if I could break 1:40 it'd be a big success, so I am very happy with this result.  I am still not a strong hill runner but I am improving.  My next race is another HM in three weeks.  That one is also hilly, but not as tough as this and I'll be looking to PR.  7 weeks until my marathon.  Today wasn't a good predictor of my marathon time, since the marathon is flat.  This was a nice confidence boost though.  No PR today, but it sure as hell feels like one.

My coach (on the left) finished 4th overall.  ROCK.

I see how you dialed back during the first mile. 

Congrats!  Great job on what sounds like a very tough race.  Sounds promising!  I am sure your coach is happy.

Awesome job man!!! That is some killer elevation gain for 13.1 miles 

That really does look like a tough race, especially ending with a 200' climb.  Yikes.  Great job.

That is a really awesome time on that course.  Those hills!  Yikes.   Congrats on getting your redemption and then some.

Sweet!

Last year had to be an anomaly, or someone put lead in your shoes, or both.

Splits look decent considering the hills, very nice job.

very cool! congrats...be strong

I really can't read elevation profiles but 1.5-2.25ish looks bad.  7.75ish to 8.0 doesn't look too fun, either.  Oh wait, 11.75ish to the end looks like hell.

 

Great job!  Glad you crushed your time from last year.  A real confidence booster.

All three of those were pretty bad.  The last hill is two steady miles of up, with just a couple of very short declines.  My legs were just trashed by the end of that race and I couldn't go any faster on that last hill (the effort was certainly there as indicated by my HR).  I've never felt so much muscle ache in my legs after a HM before.  A hilly course certainly hurts differently.