June 3rd, 2008
A lot has happened since my last post. School is out here at New Hampton, so I have endured final exams, graduation, lots of meetings, and also five days in the mountains with a bunch of sophomores, since our 10th graders go backpacking in lieu of exams each year. Perhaps I’ll have time to write about that later, but for now I am almost busier than I was when I had a job. But not too busy to drive to Rhode Island for a race.
The race was the Rhody 5k, a New England Grand Prix event. Grand Prix races have points for running clubs, which tend to compete fiercely to win the overall title, though my running club is in the process of self-destructing so there weren’t many of us there. There are a lot more running clubs than ski clubs but I am still sorting out whether they know anything we don’t.
Anyway, the race. I went out at the back of the lead pack, and was in a kind of no man’s land at the mile, with a bunch of runners a few seconds ahead of me and a bigger group just a little behind. I was hoping to go through between 4:55 and 5:00, but in fact came through at 4:50. This got me revising my goal from 15:35 to 15:25 or even faster…it really hadn’t felt that hard.
During the next mile the pack started to string out a bit. Not too much though; it was harder to pass people than in any race I can remember, as people were definitely playing for keeps. I passed a couple runners and got passed by a couple, and stayed fairly close to the lead group, so I was shocked to go through two miles in 9:54. I was slowing down fast!
I tried to pick in up over the last mile. On the last small climb (and I do mean small, the course had just enough elevation change to keep a runner engaged, not enough to slow you down) I passed three or four runners. I was pushing hard with half a mile to go. And then, about 14 minutes in, I had nothing left. No one around me seemed to either–I only got passed by two or three in the last couple minutes, but I went through three miles in 15:02 and staggered in to the finish at 15:40, 17th place.
All in all this isn’t too bad. I have only a couple interval sessions in me this year, and no reason to be going fast yet. And given how easy it was to go out fast, I feel confident that it won’t take much training to speed my last mile up a lot.
I need to do that. In mid-August I run the Cigna 5k in Manchester. My goal for the summer (maybe I should say athletic goal, but to some extent my goal, period) is to set a PR there. Eleven years ago I ran 14:52, so I need to get about five seconds faster per week until then. Incidentally, 14:52 is the fastest a 20-year-old resident of New Hampshire has run 5k on the roads in New Hampshire (yes, there is someone with enough time on his hands to keep track of such things). The best a 31-year-old has done in 14:54, so this is a chance to get back into the record books as well! I will keep you posted about my progress.
