I have many reasons to be happy about this race (but my time is not one of them)!

The race was in Dover, NH, about 10 minutes north of Portsmouth. This was the first race in the 2010 edition of our Seacoast Road Race Series. I helped start the Seacoast Series six years ago, and we work hard to keep it fresh so people will remain motivated to enter and complete the Series.. The deal is that if you finish 6 of the 8 races in the Series (which goes from May till late October), you earn a nifty custom jacket. In local circles, some people talk of it having the same cache as a Boston Marathon jacket. I have a hard time buying that, but people do work hard to get their jackets, and an awful lot of people wear their Seacoast Series jackets to their Spring, Fall, and Winter races. Registration for this year's Series will be open for another couple of months, but we already have about 1,050 people signed up, which is about 30% ahead of where we were at this time last year. (Last year, about 545 people completed the entire Series and earned their jackets.)

We invited the Children's Museum Footbridge 5K into the Series 3 years ago. Prior to that, they averaged about 300 finishers. The first year in the Series, they more than doubled that. This year, they had over 1,000 finishers, making it the largest race in Dover. Very cool.

I had convinced the race directors of all the races in the Series to include competitive walking divisions in their races this year, and we will offer an award to the two top walkers in the entire Series at the end of the season. I want to enter as many of the Series races as I can this year, primarily to try to set an example for the other racewalkers in the area. The Footbridge 5K had over 60 walkers entered, although many of them were 'casual' walkers.

This course starts with an uphill, and is an almost constant series of ups and downs until the last 2-3 tenths. It isn't overwhelming, but it certainly is challenging. The runners and walkers started together, and I started about 25 rows back, with 2 other racewalkers from my training group. I moved out ahead of them quickly, as we all knew I would. For the first mile, I focused on not getting stuck behind slower runners while trying to keep on the tangents. Mile 2 had a loop, and as I went in, I tried to see if there were any other walkers ahead of me coming out. I didn't see any, but that didn't mean they weren't there. So I did my best to keep the the pressure up and my turnover rate quick.

There was also a steep downhill in mile 2 which was hard and painful. Because of the rules of racewalking, you can't really just let go and fly down the hills as when you're running. You still have to keep the leading leg straight, and have one foot in contact with the ground at all times. So walking downhills is a real shin-killer, and this hill was no exception. Damn! I finally got to the short flat section near the end, so I sucked it in and pushed hard. In my last 5K race, Stephan was not far behind me, and said afterward that he tried to catch me, but ran out of real estate before the finish. I knew Stephan was in this race, and if he wasn't already across the finish line, there was a good chance he was on my tail. That motivated me to as strong a finish as I could muster. And sure enough, just after the announcer called my name as I finished, he was announcing Stephan's finish! I finished in 33:38 (the hills really took their toll on my speed), and Stephan was only 6 seconds back.

In fairness to Stephan, he only started racewalking at our racewalking clinics last August. So he has made tremendous progress, and I'm very proud of him. In fairness to me, he's 16 years younger. I'm convinced that before the end of the summer, it'll be me trying to catch up to Stephan at these races.

5 of the first 9 walker finishers were men and women who had been to at least a few of our racewalking clinics or training sessions. It's great to see them out competing, instead of just being closet racewalkers. Now we just need to keep on the rest of the people from our groups to get them out in races as well.

Due to a prior commitment, I had to leave immediately after I finished - my cool down was my walk back to the car. So it was only when I was able to check the results online later in the day that I found out that I won the walker division. My award is 2 lobster dinners at a restaurant just across the border in Maine, which made DW quite happy. Yep, it was a pretty good day!

Jay

Your series with jackets as awards sounds neat.  If I were in your area, I'd sure try to earn one.  Congratulations on being first walker and on the lobster dinner.

TomS