The rain cleared about an hour before the 6:30 start. I ran over to the race from the house to get a 21 minute warm up. Kristen picked up my bib number. No shirt tonight due to the high humidity. The race went out and off as expected with CMS t'mate Patrick Rich and Tim Richard (Holy Cross grad heading into the Air Force in two weeks) taking no prisoners. I passed John Ayers into third place 400m after the start. Mile 1 passed in 5:08. John passed me and I hung with him, trading places few times until the end where there is downhill once we entered Lynch Park. I had a little extra but John was not giving much finishing three seconds back. My watch had 16:33 but official time seems to be 16:34 (5:21 mile pace) for third place. Patrick fought hard to the finish and got a PR just behind Tim. My dad was in attendance and picked up my 3rd place plaque for while I was running the course again with Brett Rickenbach (bandit), Heather (ran a PR too), and Patrick Rich. I also picked up first Beverly resident. I thanked John after the race for a great race, keeping the pace honest, and giving me a hard time. He was very supportive in the last 800m - encouraging us to pick it up or telling me to get going into home stretch. We help each other sometimes when we feel like backing off the throttle. All in all, it was a good race, over 30 seconds quicker than a 5K last Thursday and bettered my best time this year by four seconds.
Jim - nice job. Long time no chat. My best to you bud. Matt Simpson
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