 posted May-14-2007 07:38 AM
   
As I have been saying this race was not one of my “goal” races although I really wanted to maintain my string of sub 20 finishes at this distance I knew that the competition at this particular race would be very stiff. My biggest pre-race fo-pah so to speak is that on our Saturday morning group run we ended up doing 10.74 miles including several miles of trail running which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was just a tad bit worried about the effect this type of mileage would have on my ability to put together a strong race but filed those worries and continued on anyways.Sunday morning I got up at about 6:00, showered and got into my race gear which consisted of my new Orange Short Sleeve 2007 Boston Marathon Tech Shirt, Black w/orange stripes 2007 Boston Marathon Running Shorts, Asics 2110 running shoes, sun glasses and my trusty Garmin 305. I then had my usual breakfast of “champions” two cookies and cream pop-tarts, a banana, a glass of orange juice and a glass of chocolate milk. After breakfast I got my wife up as she was accompanying me this year. This was not the norm, but with her mother still in the hospital our annual post-race breakfast at the house with all her brothers and sisters and their significant others was postponed, and we would be heading over to visit with her mom at the hospital after the race. Then it would be off to my sons in Rochester, NH to help him re-construct a fence he lost in the Patriot’s Day storm. We headed out at about 7:30 and arrived at about 8:15 where I met up with Brian Denger one of my running friends. Brian and I headed out for our pre-race warm up along the course and had a very comfortable run of 3.1 miles in 24:57 for an 8:02 pace. Once we arrived back at the race starting area we removed our wind breakers and got into “race mode”. Last year this race had 929 finishers and I had gotten an e-mail earlier saying that they had 1,300 pre-registered and expected several hundred more to register on race day due to the projected nice weather. Well they were right on, it was packed and I have to say that they may need to look at “seeding” for this race as there were so many people lined up near the front of the pack that simply didn’t belong there, but that’s a rant for another post isn’t it! Brian and I positioned ourselves up near the front and ended up being about three deep when the “cannon” went off to start the race. I noticed the impact that the crowd had right off as it took me a bit to get into a smooth pace as I had to do a bit of weaving so as not to be “too slow” and then I concentrated on not going out “too fast” so maybe the crowds helped a little. Brian and I ran together for the bulk of the race and were really in a pretty good groove. Another of our running buddies Don who lives along the race route said he was going to meet us at both ends of his street (at about .5 mile into the start and 2.25 on the back side) and he made good on his promise as I saw him and got some good “go Bob” cheers as I passed by. We had been passed by a fair amount of “jack rabbits” during that first quarter to half mile and were beginning to reel some of them already as we approached the first mile and saw 6:10….wow I think that was pretty fast considering I purposely held it back a bit. I wasn’t overly concerned though because I knew that this second mile would be a bit slower since it has some rolling hills and a bit of a steady climb. Brian and I were still running together and still reeling in quite a few runners although certainly not as many during this second mile and we weren’t being passed by any. I was thinking of that and feeling really good as we were approaching the halfway point when I heard someone coming up pretty hard right behind me and then “what the f*$k” this guy trips me from behind causing me to lose stride and stumble. No “on your left” or any other type of request for me to give way one way or the other so that he could pass. Well I recovered ok but definitely lost a few seconds on that one and Brian was now well out in front of me. Maybe that was a good thing because it gave me something to really concentrate on at this point of the race. I hit the second mile at 6:31 and thought “holy crap” but then realized that all things considered that wasn’t all that bad and told myself that I could finish strong and still be ok. The final couple of hundred yards of mile two are down hill and I figured I would use that to get a pretty good burst going for mile three since I felt pretty good and gave it a go, and I also saw Don at about mile 2.25 giving out some more encouragement which is always nice to hear. This was the point where I knew I had lost some concentration in my last race and I was going to be damned if that would happen today. I kept reminding myself how great it was going to feel to finally get that sub 20 on this course and definitely was able to maintain focus as I continued to pass a couple of runners during the final mile. As we made the turn into Fitzpatrick Stadium and mile three went by in 6:12 I was very pleased and was pretty confident at that point that my streak of sub 20’s was going to go to three! I really kicked it for all I was worth at this point as we went behind the bleachers along a dirt road and then into the Portland Sea Dogs Baseball Stadium for the final stretch. I was absolutely going all out on this and hear but didn’t see my wife as she yelled “go Bob go” and I could see 19:40 on the finish clock and hit my Garmin just after finishing and saw 19:42. YES, I did it and even another PR even if by only a couple of seconds a PR never the less. Upon downloading my data from Garmin it showed 3.13 miles run – 19:40 with an average heart rate of 162 and a max heart rate of 173. Official results:
86/1439 OA
6/60 AG
19:43 (6:21) So the official results show me as having the exact same time as my race last week. I am happy with that especially since this is a much tougher course and I probably logged a few too many miles on Saturday. Tom Ryan did win my age group again but he had an off day as he has been sick with the flu – finished in 17:30 with a new local fast runner that just turned 50 right on his heels at 17:35. The winner of the race smashed the old record with a 14:30 almost a full minute ahead of the winner of the last 5 Sea Dogs 5K races!!
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Bob
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Great job, you are running great! Matching your exact official finish time with your last PR counts as a PR too, especially with being tripped.
