A good course, challenging, rolling, and very well done. Police and volunteers at all the key points. Good water stops. It was cold enough, 20's F, I was wondering if we would get ice but we got good cold water.
One Wamp running buddy I saw dispensing water at the 3 stop and then again at the 8 stop, nice double duty buddy!
A group of
Pacers were there (as well as my daughter and her friend to run the 5K).
If you have followed my progress, this was going to be a good workout on the race course. I ran 10 in a "fun run" with the Wamps a few weeks ago in about 79 minutes so I want to do just better than that. Especially since each of the last two weeks, I had run 13 on Sunday, this seemed a reasonable goal.
Better pacing would have provided that result.
I started by working my way through the crowd, about 400 runners, to get into my rhythm and found the first mile at 7:30. Well, it was better than 8:00 so that was good. The second came along the same way as I hit two at 15:00. That was good, consistent. I did feel good. Not sure what happened during the next mile, maybe I was thinking of the 5K my daughter and friend were going to run. I hit three in 22:00 (7:00). Not good. So I backed it off a bit and hit four in 31:00 (9:00). Not good, backed it up too much, or did the rolling road have something to do with it? Back to concentration time and I found five at 38:30 (7:30). That's better. The rolls got a bit more pronounced but they were really only rolls. And whatever went up came down the other side so it was good to work. Six came by in 46:00 (7:30). Not bad, some consistency. The rolls continued and seven came by in 54:10 (8:10) Starting to feel the cold. There was a long hill during the eight mile and I felt it coming to the mile mark at 63:00 (8:50). Only two to go, let's get back to it. Started feeling a bunch coming up on me. For most of the past few miles I had been trading places with folks with little overall movement of folks going by me. But this pack was coming, or I was slowing, and I realized it was more me than them so that helped the concentration. I found nine at 71:00 (8:00). Better. Another group approached and as I stayed with some, some just went by that I could do nothing about. The home stretch was welcome and I finished but was glad it was only ten today. 78:54 (7:54). Halleluiah, now for some soup!
The first three at 22:00, the last three at 24:40. Not the negative splits I would have preferred.
Some of the stretches were into the breeze and I tried tucking in with whatever running buddy happened to be near to let them take the breeze. Some of them clearly did not appreciate this. They altered their stride to get ahead or fall back. I talked with one of them who did this drastically. I encouraged them to tuck in to me, but they grunted and fell further back. I will need to watch this in other races this season. Where is the cooperativeness on the road? Will also need to help reinforce this with some of the Pacer practices. If we get practiced at it, it will help us all, and maybe by example we can share the road better.
All in all, a good day. Cold yes but it has been colder.
Carolyn's cold bothered her so she did not run well. Her friend Laura ran real well in the 5K taking first female overall in the 99 finishers. Way to go Laura!
What's next? Back to regular workouts for a couple of weeks in preparation for the
Run to Remember in Boston. Nice irony in that title, I'll need to remember my pacing advice to do this 13 miler. :-)
