JFK 50 Miler

August 27th, 2010 - Race - Hudson, NH - 3.1

Day 238 - The Zack Attack 5K didn't appear on my race calendar until about two nights ago when I found out that Linda Young had a couple of sponsorship entries remaining. She would have probably ran this race too if it wasn't for a broken foot! Get better soon!

I found that Linda had a total of three spots to give away when I asked for Fil and Deric. I wasn't planning on running any more short distance races this season, but I'm not one to pass up on a free race entry, especially one that's $30! In the end, my competitiveness got the better of me and I decided to head up to Hudson to run with the Farias.

This race would also be the first race I've ever ran on a Friday evening. Now I just need to find one on a Wednesday evening and I would have every day of the week covered this year.

This 5K in Hudson uses the same course as Nate's Race about a month back. I ran that race in 18:14 on a muggy Sunday morning about a month ago.

Tonight was a little humid, but nothing oppressive. I was hoping to run under 18 to continue where I had left off from the last GT5K on Tuesday night.

I also thought that I had a good shot at placing in the top 2 overall. That was until I saw a blue streak run past me during warm ups. Yep. Joe Donnelly was here tonight (one of Linda's other sponsored runner). Then my cell rang. Yep. It was Cody calling to tell me that he was heading up to the race. Well, at least I could try for 3rd place.

There was already a large crowd of runners gathered at Alvirne High when Deric and I arrived. We got our numbers, and went to heckle Fil out on the soccer field. He was reffing a game tonight, and he was hoping to finish up reffing by the 7PM race start time. It was going to be close.

(Take your red card and...)

Cody and I did a 1.5 mile warm up and discussed what we were hoping to run tonight. Cody was most likely going to place 2nd behind Joe with another sub-17 ass kicking.

Unfortunately for Fil, the race organizers were organized and got the race started a little before 7PM. Fil was still wearing his zebra outfit by the time Cody and I (also Andy) rounded the first turn on the course, a quarter of a mile into the race.

I ran the first mile at Nate's Race in 5:56, and was planning to run my miles a little faster here, since I knew what to expect on the course.

Joe Donnelly was out of sight by the first mile, and Cody wasn't too far behind him. Andy and I were right behind a pack of four other runners as we began to climb the only hill on the course. The hill itself steadily climbs for about a half mile before descending for the remainder of the race.

I relayed my splits and tips to Andy as we began to put the pressure on the runners in front of us. The pack fighting for 3rd overall went through mile 1 in 6:04. This was about 10 seconds slower than I wanted, but there was no reason to push it since 3rd place was less than two seconds in front of me at this point. I told Andy that two of the four runners in front of us would start to fall back shortly. One of them looked really young and his form was falling apart. The other was wearing a pair of soccer sneakers.

Right on cue, Andy and I reeled in the two kids I picked out and easily passed them on the hill. I managed to pass one other runner on the hill, who ended up battling with Andy for the rest of the race. It was now just me and the final runner from the original pack of four.

Dominic and I quickly chatted it up and I found out that he ran 18:37 at Nate's Race (I thought he looked familiar), finishing right behind me a month ago. He also said that he was coming back from an injury, and had been consistently running 15+ minute 5K's before the injury. Yikes!

I knew right away that I had my work cut out for me for the rest of the race. I tried a surge tactic on one of the final up hill portions of the course, and Dom stuck right with me.

I managed to keep pace with him on the downhills where I've recently changed my running style to great benefit. I've been trying to land on the forefoot as much as possible on the downhills, which reduces a lot of the breaking motion that I experienced before. The difference is night and day.

We crossed through mile 2 in 6 flat and the pace was starting to pick up as the rest of the race was going to be downhill.

I managed to keep within one second of Dom throughout the final mile, but it took a lot out of me. I found out after the race that I managed my fastest mile ever for a 5K (5:20) on mile 3 of this race!

Dominic managed to pull to about a 3 second lead at the bottom of the mile 3 downhill. I wasn't finished yet though. I made one last ditch effort to catch him and was able to hit the highest MPH ever recorded on my Garmin at a race: 15.8! I averaged a sub 4 min/mile over the last tenth of a mile (I can't imagine doing this for a whole mile!)

Even with that late, frenetic surge, I was unable to catch Dom who went on to finish 3rd overall with a time of 17:47. I finished fourth with a time of 17:48. Ironically, my 17:48 time would have been good enough for 3rd at Nate's Race, one second behind Cody's 17:47.

Cody (16:59) took second behind Joe's mind/leg numbing 16:23 performance.

Andy got out kicked by his rival over the final .1 and ended up in 6th overall.

Deric finished around 24:30 for a 5 minute PR over his Nate's Race time!

Almost as a footnote, Fil came in around the 30 minute mark (started 10 minutes late), and still managed to place in his AG! The timers were kind enough to deduct the 10 minutes from his time for the official results.

Official Results

Plan is to put in a long run tomorrow along the Charles River in Boston.

1 comment:

  1. Nice running J, way to keep the wheels spinning when all they want to do is fall off.

    Happy Hump Day: http://www.mysticrunners.com/moxie/5k_races/wednesday-night-5k-fun-run.shtml

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