Run: Race Previous Next

Notes

Good hard course, awesome race, hit my goals and then some, weather was perfect.

Harry and Alan came up Friday to visit for Saturday, so we all got up early and out to Harvard, I started my warm up about half an hour before the race started so that we could keep track of each other better, but I had enough time to do what I needed, thankfully it was a small race, so the line at the bathroom before the start was nonexistent, I got up to the start ~8 minutes before race time, and was able to get loosened up enough.

They started the 5 and 10 at the same time, 5 mile group was about 100ft in front, they were making a left after a stretch down a narrow road, 10 milers were making a right, by the time I was at the bottom of the downhill start, I'd passed most of the 5 mile field, and was leading the 10 mile field. Once my watch picked up the 5:10 pace, I dialed it back a bit, and let 3 people pass me as I focused on staying relaxed, and still went through the first mile ~5:40, I tried to close up some of the gap on 3rd in the 2nd mile, but I made myself relax a bit, because I still had a long way to go. I thought it was a 5 man race at this point, and I was feeling pretty good, just kept focused on 3rd place, noting that I was going quite a bit faster than the 5:57 pace that I had planned for the first half of the race, but still feeling in control and strong.

I got past the turn after 4 miles of the race, Harry got a pretty nice picture of me coming around the turn, and I had my 5 mile split at 29:10, I was planning on 29:45, but the 29:10 felt better than at Westfield State. At this point, I actively got Hush stuck in my head to keep my rhythm going as we were heading down towards the big hills in the 2nd half of the race. I rolled hard to get close to the 3rd place guy, and then about 7.25 miles, I made a hard move to get in front of him, and he pretty much just let me go. From there I was just battling against the hills. All the hill work I did early in the season really helped, I only gave up about 15s on the serious uphill mile.

About a mile and a half from the finish, my shoe came untied, but I didn't stop to tie it because I wasn't sure if I had a shot at <58, rolled the last downhill mile, but the finish came up kind of quickly on me, so I didn't really unload everything I had.

1:18 at Baystate should be all good, hopefully I get the same weather that was out there today.

Finally have a faster PR than Lane :P