Notes
I dedicated this race to Eleni's father, who passed away at age 91 last week. Bremen Park was Eleni's favorite place to run in East Boston, so I felt her spirit has a connection here, so this would be the best race to dedicate to her dad.
My goal was to run faster than last year (19:42), which was an amazing race considering I hadn't done much training at that time due to the bad hamstring. I am in better shape now,so going slower would have been disappointing.
However, times went out the window due to the sever headwind - 25-30 mph. It was tough to get going, to feel right with the wind. Surprisingly I was 3rd most of the race. First mile was 6:30, 5 seconds slower than last year, but half of it was into that wind. Mile 2 was 6:27 and similar to last year, I was to pick it up the last mile (half tailwind, half headwind) with a 6:08. The last .1 was at 5:42 pace.
II caught the young woman I was chasing with about a half mile to go, but then a guy went by me with 400m left and I couldn't stay with him and he beat me by 5 seconds for 2nd place. I found out later he was 24 seconds faster last year, so i was closer this time. I still have a hard time coming to terms that I just can't kick like I used to when I was younger. Even though I had 25 years on this guy, I still get annoyed to get outkicked, which never happened until my 50's.
I did lose 3 seconds at about mile 2 because I had to stop and yank out a stone that got wedged in my shoe.So even though I was a few seconds slower than last year, with the wind, I feel ok about it.