Notes
First of all, huge props to Alicia who completely killed it today. Secondarily, Eric ran a pretty solid race too despite that heat derailed most of us. My raced sucked and there is no way around that. My expectations were that I was in <1:40 shape and if things went well that’s what would have happened. With the weather predictions I feared the day would suck but I was surprised at the weather in the early morning when I woke up at my parents’ house in Maynard and the temps were cool and in the 50s. It seemed perfect. After meeting the crew and a quick warm up things got hot quick. Standing around Cremer introduced me to X and William, X’s boy that he was pushing in a jogging stroller type deal. William is a big kid and I was blown away by what Chris was trying to accomplish. We met Mikey Mike and general hung around. The 5k went off and then the half group went shortly thereafter. When I went by the mat I started the watch but the GPS didn’t connect right away so I had no pace. Frankly, it didn’t matter because I knew Cremer would be running with me so I didn’t stress about it. After about the first half I ended up surging ahead and finished the 1st mile in 7:04. I wasn’t worried about going out to fast because I felt my fitness was better and eased back a bit. 2,3,4 and nothing felt really hard or easy. I felt ok but I just didn’t feel like I was in a groove. Cremer pulls up beside me and asks “how you feeling” and I said not great. He started to pull ahead from there and he was just gone and their wans’t much I could do. I just struggled. I was hot, felt sluggish, and generally knew it was going to continue to suck as time went by. @ 5 I’m still ahead of pace. I can’t remember if it was 8 or 9 but I stopped and walked, and that happened a couple of more times. I tried to fuel every 3 or 4 miles but that didn’t help. The end was just a struggle and the experience generally sucked. As always, the best part was hanging with the group before and after the race. After the race I ended up at Marshwood about 15 minutes late but I caught both of Connor’s goals which was really cool as he converted on a couple of great passes from him teammates. They were both beautiful plays were other guys made gorgeous passes to him and as usual he was in the right place at the right time. Despite the weather it’s obvious I suck at racing and I need to do more of this and get better at it. The heat sucked but I gave in and need to do better and I know that. I’m not thrilled about the result but know I have better days ahead of me. Hopefully October 19th will mean better temps and I know I should do better. Not to say that it matters much but I don’t get how my race results is so far off. That makes no sense to me as I should have been 1:47:42 +/- a few seconds.
Time: 1:48:02
Pace: 8:14/M
Division: Half Marathon
Overall Place: 45/214 | 21.0%
Age Group: M 40-49
Age Group Place: 8/27 | 29.6%