An Ras Mor: The Great Race & PR

That's just the translation - An Ras Mor = The Great Race

And it was a pretty good race. On Saturday, the day prior to the race, I had some easy miles, followed by some not so easy heavy lifting of a giant slab of concrete. That was followed up with a celebratory trip to Cambridge 1 for some pizza and beer, since that concrete slab represented a big chunk of work finished on the kitchen. (NOTE: this will not be repeated the day before the marathon)

On race morning I woke up sufficiently early to have some coffee, oatmeal, and meet with Albert. I went out pretty early hoping to get in a chunk of miles beforehand to make up for the fact that I wouldn't be getting in a true long run. So I did a two mile loop ending back at home for another quick meeting with Albert (home field advantage must be taken advantage of!). Then I hit the roads to jog down to Central Square to meet up with Elizabeth, who had driven down.

I was nice and warmed up despite the fact that it was in the 40's and rainy. Unfortunately, Elizabeth was a tad nervous thanks to the poor combination of her Reynaud's and the crappy weather. I kept her company in the car for a few minutes before heading back out to continue jogging - passing by Kevin and Terry in their respective warm ups as well.

I jogged about a half mile down the course so that I could see Elizabeth after the women's 9:30 start, and she looked comfortable relaxed in the middle of the pack. She finished with a chip time of 21:01 - coming in 60th out of 260 female runners. An excellent result considering that she hasn't been training.

I jogged back to the start to lose my tights and jacket/shirt. Then did some strides, and a few butt kicks before shuffling through the crowd to get close to the front - I wasn't going to get stuck behind 8 minute milers improperly lined up like I did at New Bedford.

The gun went off, and we quickly turned onto Mass Ave and the race was already spreading out quickly. I settled into a nice pace, and then soon thereafter was passed by Kevin who settled into his own nice pace, which ended up being about 8 seconds faster/mile than mine. I tried to keep contact with him up until about 1.25 miles when I knew that simply wouldn't be happening. Shortly thereafter, Terry and Yoshi both passed me as well, and they were holding a pace very similar to me.

With Terry leading the charge, we pealed off of Mass Ave. and eventually down Putnam. Both Terry and Yoshi slowly began pulling away towards the end of mile 2. I ended up running even splits for the first two miles, but my legs wouldn't open up throughout the race. Very similar to New Bedford, I just had that feeling that my legs were very tight and unable to get good extension. Whatever though.

Photo Courtesy of TFXC

As Terry and Yoshi were pulling away, Kieran Condon of the Somerville Road Runners passed me as well - my friendly rival from the Thanksgiving 5k back in November. So I tried to buckle down and do some racing. I threw in some surges here and there, but they essentially just kept me within shouting distance of the trio ahead of me. Little by little though, I was making up ground.

Unfortunately, I was running out of distance. With a quarter mile to go, I began to put the pedal down. I had all three within site, but Terry and Kieran were starting their kick as well and were too far ahead. Just as we turned into the final straight, I was able to get on to Yoshi's shoulder and we had a great race to the finish. I was able to pass him and keep him on my back shoulder through the line. I wish I started my kick slightly earlier and went to my toes for the final 150 to try and catch Terry and Kieran, but it likely would not have mattered. Terry had a killer kick of his own to edge out both Kieran and Dave Dunham.

Splits
Mile 1 - 5:36
Mile 2 - 5:36
Mile 3 - 5:41
.1 - 30s
Final Time: 17:24

Scott Mason Photo