Easy Gait

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you all had a great time with the family, your turkey and pie went down smooth, and the nap was restful.

Big cross country race this morning in Newburyport, 18th Annual WCRC 5K Cross Country Turkey Trot. Not big as in important or meaningful, but large. I have never seen 900+ people ever show up for a cross country race so it was a fun event to run. It was also the only cross race I could find on thanksgiving to make up for the disaster that was New Englands.

There were a lot of high school kids there so needless to say the pace went out fast, really fast. I would guess 4:50 they took it out in. I was in about 5th place at the 1/2 mile and decided to just run my own pace until things settled down. The air came out of the leaders about 1/3 up the first hill and I made a move to the front. It was right there that I noticed Michael DiGennaro had returned from New Jersey to run in his old stomping grounds. Great! I decided to try to run the flat middle section hard, relax down the hill, then drive the final stretch up the hill. Worked out very well as I was able to get a gap through the pine needle woods, which is almost identical to a 800m section through memorial forest. Mike was catching me down the hill out of the woods into the fields but I was able to find another gear over the dirt the bridge and up the rolling hills to the finish. It was a lot of fun just bombing through the trails not quite knowing where I was going or what turn was next. Could have done with out the mist/drizzle and cold but it is cross season.

All things considered, good run. It was nice to be able fight for a change. The last two races when I dug in for a little extra the well was pretty dry. This time I was actually able to pick it up and open the gap a little bit on the last 600m.

Hopefully this will give a little momentum heading into club nationals.

That's all I got.