June 18, 2009

Squantum 5 miler. 1o miles on the day.

That was the hardest I've run in years.

4th of the Pub races and I knew Teague would be there, but what I didn't know was that it was also serving as the HFC GP. The whole team (or most of it anyway,) including Kevin and Jason was there. I threw strategy out the window and just decided to run as hard as I could and hope for the best (which is really what I should be doing at every race.)

The course is notoriously difficult from what I'd heard, so I didn't expect a PR. The record was 26:50 by Jamie Gallagher when he was really smokin' and John Mortimer didn't even dip below 27, so I figured it must be long or hilly or both.

The horn went off and Kevin jumped out to a 20 foot lead quickly. I broke from the pack and went after him and he was 40 feet ahead by 3/4 of a mile.

@ 1, he started to come back a little and soon after that, I went by him. I was shocked and a little scared, because I knew that if I went by him working hard that this meant I had to go that hard the rest of the way if I wanted to stay ahead. I also realized that Chris and Jason were close and if I went too hard, I wouldn't only get caught by Kevin, but I could easily drop to 4th, as not one of those guys is going to let up or drop out.

The first mile was 5:04 and felt OK, but moving. The nasty hill that everyone talked about hit us @ 1.25 and it went straight up for 400 meters at least. I watched my mile average got to 5:22 before I righted things and went flying down the backside with total abandon and made that mile my slowest at 5:17. The next went 5:14, as I regrouped a little and then I don't know where I got it from, but I went 5:12, 5:12 to close it out. I finished in 26:08 for a new record and beat Kevin, (who got 2nd and also beat the record in 26:39) by 31 seconds.

If any race serves as the turning point for a new era for me, much like NB last March, this is it.

I feel like 32:30 is absolutely in my sights for a 10k and that going under 25:30 can happen for a 5 miler on the right course. What a night.

It puts me 6 points up on Teague in the Series and Meehan is next in September.

I had a blast.