Bedford Rotary Memorial 12K

Last Saturday was the third New England Grand Prix championship race for 2010 with a 12K distance to cover in Bedford, NH. In addition, this was my first race since the Merrimac River Trail Run in April. I had expectations to run a pace close to last year at 5:32 per mile. I ran next to teammate Dan Navaroli for the first two miles with a pair of 5:25's. Those were the first and last splits that I would acknowledge on my Garmin. The long incline through mile four left the group I was running with a bit spent. I faded a bit but was carrying a few guys through which was fine. I could see several master runners ahead but I was starting to feel heavy legs around five miles. Terry McNatt flew by me. I got on his heels but that lasted about a minute. I just wanted to get the race over with. I could not wait to see the left hand turn to enter the high school track. The stretch into mile seven seemed to take forever. I battled a Whirlaway runner, Mark Gibson, all the way into the finish. Thanks to him, he kept me motivated over the last mile and a half of the race.

I finished with a 41:54 (5:38 mile pace) good for 50th out of 536 runners, just barely getting on page one of the results. Meanwhile, the team ran out of their minds. Justin Fyffe won his first New England Gran Prix event and crushed the course record. Bob Wiles continued his incredible racing in 5th, trailed by Andy McCarron (yes he just ran the Boston Marathon) in 9th, Kevin Gorman nailed this course like it was no ones business, and Mike Quintal ripped the course a new one to round out the scoring for CMS. Greg Hammett, Al Bernier, Dan Navaroli, Dave Quintal, and Jeff Goupil all had solid races.

Overall Results

The next month is rather busy. I will be at Wachusett Mountain this Saturday followed by the Rhody 5K one week later.

Photo credit to Ted Tyler.