Sunday, July 6, 2014

John Carson 2 mile road race

19th place
3/103 Male 30 – 39
10:30  or 5:15 average pace per mile

The 4th of July tradition for my racing schedule is the John Carson 2 mile road race in Chelmsford. I opted for a YMCA run race last year in Swampscott and regretted it each day since (just kidding). It is fast, competitive, and the pain is over in ten minutes or so. I did a slow and easy warm up with Dave Menard, and CMS teammates Heidi Besse and Colby Chrusciel . It was great to see them. We ran the first mile of the course and back to the start. I put on the singlet and Nike Lunaracer, version 2. I did another ¾ of a mile warm up and did some light stretching. I got just about on the front row of this one and took off at the start on a slight decline. I did not want to head out too quick as plenty of runners sprint out too quick so 40th place was per the usual here for me. We had a grade going up at 800m and I stopped passing the over-zealous runners by 1200m. I could see CMS mate, Adam Malek in 3rd place up ahead. He would finish in the same place with a 9:19. 

The mile came up pretty quick which was a good sign. My Garmin said 5:17 (noticing after the race) and I did not hear any split given. Water was given out but it was too fast of a race to consider reaching for. I was running on how I felt and had two Greater Lowell guys and the first female (Karen Roa from Boston) ahead of me.  We had a fair decline now and I slowly caught the GLRR guys. I told the 2nd one that we got to catch the female ahead. I had to put in some effort as the course dipped down again to an overpass which I would say 400m remain. I caught and passed Karen in there and now we had to climb up a bit for the last 300m to the finish where my place remained. I finished in 19th place and a time of 10:30. My Garmin had me at 5:11 and change for the 2nd mile. My goal as I was quoted at the start was 10:25 so I was close. Karen was four seconds back. I collected those that I warmed up with plus Adam for a cool down after drinking a bottle of iced tea. My plan was to take them off the parade route for a 3.5 mile cool down but I changed my mind about a mile into that and we went back onto the course where we ran into the parade coming at us with sirens, horns, cars, candy, et cetera.

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