The Market Square Day 10K (Portsmouth, NH) is the 3rd race in our 8-race Seacoast Series. Finish 6 of the 8 and earn a jacket. I decided to try to complete the Series this year, especially since we instituted a competitive walking division in all of the races. I had missed race #2, and would miss #8 (where I'm the RD), so I have to do all of the other races.

 

I missed race #2, over Memorial Day weekend, because DW and I were exhibiting at a trade conference in Chicago. I cam back from that conference with significant back pain that prevented me from any but the easiest walking - forget about racewalking. The chiropractor couldn't help. After a week and a half, I finally went to a massage therapist last Wednesday, and she found a knot the size of Toledo in my quadratus muscle. She did a lot of work on it that day (she loosened up the knot, but, oh, did it hurt while she was working on it!), and some more on Friday. I was committed to finishing the race, but beyond that, who knew?

 

I drove to Portsmouth early Saturday morning, because I also had to man the Seacoast Series table prior to the race. While getting the stuff from my car, I noticed that one of my rear tires was going flat (but only on the bottom). Swell. I decided I'd deal with that later. I stayed at the table, taking new registrations and answering questions, till 8:15. Then I packed the stuff back in my poor car and went to warm up. I felt surprisingly good, and so decided to start the race at a decent pace and see what happened after that.

 

The MSD 10K had sold out two weeks before the race, at 2,000 entrants. There was also a city-wide street fair on race day, so there were people all over the place. The course winds through the city and has a lot of hills, none of which are all that steep (although some are fairly long). The race started promptly at 9:00, and it took me about a minute to cross the start mat. We got up to a good pace fairly quickly, which was great. There was no 1-mile marker, so the first I saw was at 2 miles, and I was under an 11-minute pace, which was great! My back was holding up fine, so I just kept pushing. I didn't see any other walkers around, so I just keyed off runners that I thought I could pass, or at least keep pace with. I found that many of them slower on the uphills, so I did a lot of passing on those hills. I got some nice encouragement on the course, and that was nice, and was motivating. Mile 4 felt long (it was in my head, not a mis-measure), but I got re-energized when I saw the mile 5 marker, and pushed a little harder. I passed two women I had been chasing, and didn't see them again during the race. Still no other walkers in sight, but I was listening for walker footsteps to come up behind me at any point. I finally got to the finish (a slight downhill, and I got in a little finishing sprint), and had, for me, a surprisingly decent time: 1:06:55 for a 10:47 pace. I was first overall (what's with that??), and interestingly, there were only two men in the top 10 walker finishers.

 

Considering my previous two weeks of almost no training, I was thrilled and amazed. I had trained hard up to that point, and had worked in quite a few workouts over 7 miles, so I assume that I had a solid enough base to be able to survive all the down time. Even though I did well, that's no way to prepare for a race!

 

Oh yeah: After the race, I cleaned up as best I could, put on a dry shirt, then went to work at the booth of a non-profit group at the street fair for a couple of hours in a light drizzle. The governor of NH was in town and stopped by our booth to chat for a while, which was very nice of him. Afterward, I stopped at the local running store to pick up the new shoes I had ordered (Mizuno Musha - middle-distance racing flats, and great racewalking shoes). Then I had the pleasure of changing my flat tire and heading home. It certainly was an eventful day.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Jay

Excellent race, Jay!!  Didn't realize that was quite so big.  The other runner at work wanted to run it, but missed the cutoff.  You should be happy that there were so many ladies in the top 10--cuts down on your competition   Nothing like a little X-T after the race.