East End 5 Miler Race Report

This was a solid day all around. Terry, Kevin, Phil, Gordon and me all piled into the Subaru - which was actually pretty comfy (at least for the driver!!). And the pre-race talk heading up to Lowell got me pretty pumped to hit the starting line.

The previous two days were busy and fun for me, visiting the family in Plympton for my brother's 40th birthday extravaganza. Lots of fun, and no running - which is the first time I've taken two days off in a row in quite a while.

Anyways, after a couple miles warming up, we hit the starting line. After a pleasant rendition of the national anthem from a trumpeter, the runners packed together tightly at the starting line. The gun went off and there was a little bit of jostling due to the narrow starting line and quick turn, but once we rounded the corner everyone had enough space to get into a comfortable rhythm.

I quickly found Terry and I tried to settle in, but I felt I needed to push the pace a little bit early. Terry had grabbed a large lead after the first two miles at the Ribfest 5 Miler, and I wanted to try and dictate the pace a little bit more if I could.

We ran a quick 5:33 first mile, and Terry was right on my heals. Not too long after the first mile marker, or thereabouts, Terry and a few other guys passed me. I hung onto that pack for a bit, but I started to hurt pretty early on. During that second mile, I ended up getting gapped a little bit and was yo-yoing back and forth from ~3 meters back to ~15 meters back. Around the halfway mark after trying to hold steady through a hilly section I found myself hitting a rough patch and I ended up on the wrong end of that gap. Thankfully, we were hitting the 'other side' of the hills. I was still in a rough spot, but I knew I could gut out a hard push to catch up to the back of the pack so I made a hard surge and was right back in the mix. I was pretty gassed, but I was back on Terry's heals.

During that 4th mile I saw that we were catching up to Paul Hammond and Chris Lotsbom, two guys who are sandwiching me in the Pub Series standings. I passed Terry and the other runners in that pack as started an attempt to close the gap. Terry was right there with me in the chase, and he passed me any time that I let off the gas at all, and somewhere between 3.5 and 4.25 Terry took control and dropped me.

I ended up letting a gap develop with two other guys in the group at that spot as well, but Terry had dropped all of us and I found myself adjusting my sites on the two other guys as Terry was just about reaching Hammond and Lotsbom.

I kept my eyes out for the quarter mile mark, which I had measured out during my warm up. And once I was within site, I looked down at my watch to get a quick time (27:36) then started my hard kick. I closed the gap on the two guys ahead of me very quickly then kept the pedal down to finish in 28:48. A very strong final quarter mile, if I do say so myself.

Splits:
5:33
5:48
5:56
5:58
5:33

Dang, miles 3 and 4 sucked.

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/14/ma/Jul20_29thAn_7_set1.shtml

Looking at the results, Phil had a very solid finish before moving off to San Jose. And Kevin is on his way back from what is apparently his typical post-marathon lull. He hammered the Doyle's 5 miler then ran very well at Boston, only to have a dip in performance (by his standards!) during the last few races. I have a feeling that come the fall he'll be hit some PRs though. With that being the case, I need to get my ass in gear and start hitting my summer mileage goals again!