For the 5th race in the Pub Series, I hopped in the car with Elizabeth in the passenger seat and Raleigh in the back and drove down to Dedham. The 11:30 start time provided ample opportunity to get in a good night's rest, a good breakfast, and a solid warm up.
After picking up my number, I bumped into Kevin and we got our warm up started and met up with Terry, Theo and Nash as well. We roamed the coarse for a bit, and as become a familiar process, gave plenty of waves and nods to the other Pub Series regulars.
I felt pretty good prior to the race, though I was a little bummed that I didn't have a really great pop to my stride. I was hoping that trimming the mileage back a little would give my legs a bit more oomph, but as I was doing my strides I felt like it wasn't quite there. By the time I got to my fifth or sixth strider though, my legs certainly felt loose and warmed up, and I was ready to go.
After the runners all lined up and the gun went off, the usual crowd up front had made some room. I ran a quick first quarter mile to make sure I had plenty of space and I also wanted to stay close to Lotsbom who is sitting at #5 in the Pub Series Standings. As we turned into the first loop inside a big parking lot, the leaders were already separating themselves from the pack. I was still within shooting distance of about 4 other runners, and I had the pack of Terry/Kevin/Nash/JFallon pretty much right on my tail. As we made a sharp turn inside the parking lot before heading back for the exit, I was able to get a quick glance and see how the race was shaping up.
Once we turned back onto the main road, we had a relatively small incline before hitting the first mile marker and I had passed one HFC runner along the way before hitting the mile in about 5:26 (the markers seemed off a bit, so I'm going based on my watch). Lotsbom and O'Leary were ahead of me by about 4 seconds at this point.
We quickly turned into the neighborhood-section of the race, which started with a short little hill followed by a gradual downhill. It was at this point that Lotsbom and O'Leary pulled away even more, and I wasn't able to respond. I could hear Terry coming up on me during the uphill section, and I did my best to churn the legs and hold my position to the top of the hill. As we hit the other side of the hill, I let gravity help me out and I went into a combination of both bombing downhill and catching my breath.
I was hoping that I would be able to make up some of the aforementioned lost ground on the guys ahead of me during the downhill, but they seemed to be neither pulling away nor falling back. In retrospect, I should've held a surge here and tried to make up some time. I felt pretty good as we maneuvered through the neighborhoods and I passed the two mile mark in 10:58/59 (the guy on the course said 10:44, though again - I trust my watch on this day). Aside from a few slightly unexpected turns, and a pot hole riddled street - I was focused on keeping the pack of guys behind me right where they were.
There was one final straightaway before we turned towards the finish line, and I was oddly disappointed to see that I had made up some ground on Lotsbom and O'Leary. I had a rough idea how far ahead of me they were - and knowing that I had less than a half mile to go, I was wishing it were a 5 mile race instead of 3. There would be no push from a quarter mile out, as I was stuck in no man's land and I wasn't going to be able to make up enough ground in that short of a space.
I passed Elizabeth, who was standing a short distance from the corner (about 200 meters from the finish), and I glided fairly comfortably into the finish in 16:39. I was hurting, so 'comfortably' is a relative term, but I felt like I had more 'hurt' in me. That'll be good to know at the next Pub Series race.
Splits:
5:26
5:33
5:34
7th Overall
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