One Track Mind

I ended up running a race this morning, after saying yesterday that I would just work on mileage for the next week and a half. P is in town and he had expressed interest in running the Montague Mug Race if the weather was good. The weather was perfect (around 60 degrees) so he decided to run. I was going to go along to watch and get a run in, but when I woke up this morning, I decided I would feel somewhat left out if I didn't run, so I decided I would race.

Montague is only a little over 10 miles away from where I live, and I have run the Mug Race many times. It's a very small race, but it occasionally attracts some good local runners. The course is very scenic and has some challenging hills. The first time I ran the race was in 1990; it was my second road race ever, and I think I ran about 8:00 pace. Part of the reason I didn't want to run this year was that I have some decent times on this course, and I didn't want to find out how much slower than that I currently am.

We warmed up about two miles because that was all we had time for. We admired the llamas at the mile mark, and then we turned around and ran back to the start. The race starts with the blast of a cannon, which is always alarming, even when you know it's coming. I just wanted to feel pretty good and put in a solid effort. Given how bad I was feeling all week, and that I ran 10 miles (plus 40 minutes on the elliptical) yesterday, I was surprised that I felt pretty good.

My splits don't mean much because of the up and down nature of the course, but they were 6:31 (slightly uphill), 6:45 (uphill followed by a huge and long downhill - plus I had to stop for 15 seconds to re-tie my shoe!), 6:09 (downhill), 6:56 (uphill), 6:45 (uphill), and 3:00 (downhill half mile). Yes, I forgot to mention that the race is 5.5 miles. My time on my watch was 36:07. The race officials timed me in 35:58, but I think that is a mistake. However, I do think I could have been around 35:52 had I not stopped to tie my shoe. (I did double knot it before the race, so I'm not sure what happened there!) I averaged 6:34 according to my timing, and that could have been 6:31s without the stop.

There were a bunch of people around me in the first mile, but on a big hill just after the mile, I passed a woman and a man (before having to stop for the shoe tie and pass them again). The second time I passed the man, he came with me, and we ran together for the next three miles. He pulled away at the four mile mark and was about 10-15 seconds ahead of me at the finish. I was really glad to have him near me most of the time because although I was aiming to catch the person waaaay in front of us who I could only occasionally see, we never made up much ground, and no one else was close to us.

Even though I didn't want to know how much slower I currently am than I was in past years, since I had a time, I decided to face reality and see how it compared to my past times. Here's what I came up with, with the help of the web:
(Keep in mind that the weather was better this year than almost every other year, except maybe 2004 when it rained.)
1992 - 35:34 - going into an awesome high school XC season my senior year
2001 - 37:24 - had just moved back to Amherst after living in NY for a few years, was coming off an injury
2002 - 36:30
2003 - 35:29 - ran 38:31 on a hilly 10k course one month later, and a 3:09 marathon a few weeks after that
2004 - 34:50 - ran my 5k PR of 18:40 about two weeks later
Didn't run in 2005 or 2006
2007 - 36:07, but they're going to have me in the results at 35:58

The results kind of confirmed what I already knew...I'm not in my worst shape ever, but I'm not near my best shape either. Overall, however, I'm pretty encouraged by my time, because I haven't put in nearly as much work yet as I had when I ran faster times. I know I can get a lot faster, and I feel like I'm finally in good enough shape that I can start doing some decent training this fall. And having said that, now it's time to get on the elliptical.

P.S. I should note that P had his best race in a long time and ran in the lead pack most of the way. I could tell that he was running well because I didn't see him at all after the first mile, which gave me the hunch that things were going well. He wound up fifth overall and I finished a very distant second to a former pro triathlete.