Notes
THE RACE: The original plan for the 4th of July workout was a 20 mile bike ride out to Lexington to meet up with HB, and then run the 6.5 miles to race the Concord 5 Miler, run to Walden for a swim, and then run back to Lex. This would have made for an awesome workout. Of course, the early morning rain put a damper on everything except for the race. HB decided to sleep in, so I drove to the race under some, at times, heavy rain. I love summer rain. Not too cold, not too hot. Just perfect for racing. Mike Shanahan was already there warming up when I went to register at 8:30AM for the 9AM race. A couple of other familiar faces, including MacDara Nash, was at this race, but no one appeared to be too threatening. I figured that most of the speedsters were up in Chelmsford at the Carson 2 miler, or just relaxing on a holiday. Concord is Nash's home turf, and he ran 29:18 here last year, so he was going to be right with me if I was going to go for my PR (29:01). I've spent a good part of my spring and summer, so far, training in and around Concord (for Timberman), so I knew this area pretty well myself. The rain stopped about 10 minutes before the start and the sun was starting to come out. The humidity was now skyrocketing to triple digits at this point. I was already drenched in sweat before the Minutemen signaled the start a little after 9AM. To make a long story short: 1st overall + pr by 30+ seconds on the 4th. See runningahead post for the mile-by-mile details. Post script: ran last mile at pretty much my track mile PR from two weekends ago: 5:04. Sandbagger.