April 13th, 2008
Friday our cycling team (five of us including two coaches) had a nine mile time trial in the rain. Saturday I went for a longish ski in 70 degrees and bright sun. So it seems only natural that I would finish the weekend with the first running race of the year.
I ran a race almost this early last year. I will probably run that one again next week - the Muddy Moose Trail Run should be great this year, 14 miles of snow instead of mud! But I haven’t been on the roads this early since my sophmore year in college. I expected that since this is a New Hampshire Grand Prix event with points for running clubs on the line, and since runners ought to be moving faster than skiers right now, that it would be a challenging race.
Within a minute of the gun I discovered that the field was a lot thinner than I expected. I was running with only one other competitor, Rich Smith, who I have been racing for years at various races and who is now in fact one of my teammates in the GCS Triad Racing Team. We went through the mile in 5:17 and barely slowed down on the second mile. The race went around a little loop at this point and I could see we were almost a minute clear of the rest of the field (it was ultimately a 15-year-old who finished third though; I was impressed). The third mile was uphill and into the wind, and I was hurting. I backed off even more than I needed to, falling in behind Rich and forcing him to set the pace.
As we approached the 3 mile mark I decided to make my move. We had slowed in the last lap, and while we were still climbing we were out of the wind. I made a big surge all the way to the top of the hill half a mile later and opened up a huge gap. In fact, I suspect that I put over half of the 40 seconds I ended up winning by in that climb.
So I got a win, and a temporary lead in the New Hampshire Grand Prix standings (it won’t last long as I can’t run in the next race…) I was only fourth in the age-graded results, which Rich won, and I was nipped by a 72-year-old who ran a 46:38, which is equivalent to me running six seconds faster than the 33:32 I actually put up. I can only hope I will be using age-graded tables to win my own little victories in 41 years!
