Notes
Pembroke Alumni XC Race! 2nd annual... close to a 5' PB on the course after last year's food poisoning debacle. Jesse was sick this year! Not like I was last year, but enough that he wasn't competitive... the rivalry will have to wait until BU to flourish. Great weather this morning, fun time, wore my Vic XC 3's Paul got me which were great. Just wanted to go out and have some fun racing.
The course isn't super difficult, but it's slow - two woods loops that are pretty technical (poor footing, sharp turns, some quick ups and downs). I pretty much ended up leading the race right from the start - I think everyone was under the mistaken impression that I knew the course... had Korey "The Sidewinder" Leonard breathing hard on my shoulder for the first half mile. There was a talkative pack behind us. About a mile in Christian came up alongside with me, we ran together until entering the woods the second time and then he hit the gas. I kept my nose in it for another couple of minutes, but everyone left in the lead group went by me and I lost focus a bit on the hilly / twisty finish of the woods loop and lost a lot of ground. Didn't really hit flat and open terrain until we hit the baseball fields which is basically 400m to go, I made up a decent gap to Pat Cunningham but ran out of room. I rabbited the group to a hot pace - Joe Joe set a new course record, and I think the top 4 were all under Christian's 14:59 from last year (and Yan's 15:01 for 5th would have been 2nd last year). I'll be in CR shape for sure next year... AKA good enough shape to push some tempoing DI guys to a faster course record.
"It was a brave effort, running from the front - you were like Tiernan last weekend" - Hugh (spoken in very Irish accent)
Special appearance by the one and only PONY this morning.
Happy Thanksgiving!