CMS series 5km race

The original plan for today was to head to Melrose for the final XC race of the season.  I started to worry about the icy remains of the storm from this week, and it wasn't easy to convince Petey to race in Worcester instead.  I hadn't done a CMS series race in more than 10 years and hadn't raced the Worcester course since 1993.  In '93 I ran 26 CMS series races in order to get a special t-shirt.  It was a lot of fun but I guess it burned me out on going to Worcester.

I picked up Petey and we were the first ones to show up for registration just after 8AM.  The temperature was in the teens and the wind chill put it in single digits.  We headed out and ran the course as a warm-up and to make sure we knew where to go (no course markings).  After a quick change into race gear we headed out for strides then hit the line with the other 20-30 runners.  It was COLD standing on the line.

As always I felt lousy warming-up.  I took it out pretty hard and about 1/2 mile in after the hard (into a headwind) left onto Mill st, I upped the pace and tried to work hard while I had a cross-wind.  I felt like I found a good pace from around 1m-2m (don't know for sure where the mile marks were).  The final mile was generally up-hill and I was wheezing the whole way.  That is a good sign, it means I was pushing it hard.  I looked at my watch 3 or 4 times over the final half mile to see about how much was left.  I kicked hard into the headwind and came up a bit short of a sub-17 (17:11).  I thought I could run around 17:30 considering the conditions so I was very pleased with the time and effort.  Petey took third in just under 19 minutes.  We did a quick 2m warm-down and got him home by 10:30.  Fun day!
 
Looking over results from this year, my time would be the fifth best this year (for the Worcester version of the series)
1 16:30 Chris Gabrielson -1mo- M20-39 WPI
2 16:32 Kim Duclos -1fo- F20-39 Worcester CMS
3 17:04 Chris McCann M20-39 Blackstone NB Boston
4 17:07 Peter Brown -1mj- M00-19 WPI

This was my 29th CMS series race with times ranging from 14:40 to a race-walk effort with Don Drewniak (31:45).  Here are my series results:

Date	Location	Time	Place	Field
01/02/93	Worcester	16:20	1	35
01/09/93	Worcester	15:01	1	54
01/23/93	Worcester	14:44	1	52
01/30/93	Worcester	15:23	1	40
02/13/93	Worcester	16:48	1	6
02/20/93	Worcester	15:12	1	37
02/27/93	Worcester	16:51	1	33
03/06/93	Worcester	16:56	1	27
03/13/93	Worcester	19:47	14	30
03/20/93	Worcester	20:41	18	30
03/28/93	Worcester	14:54	1	63
04/14/93	Fitchburg	14:59	1	17
04/21/93	Worcester	15:27	1	20
04/28/93	Fitchburg	20:56	8	16
05/12/93	Bolton	20:23	14	50
05/19/93	Worcester	14:40	1	25
06/02/93	Fitchburg	19:26	5	20
06/16/93	Fitchburg	31:45	2	2
06/23/93	Fitchburg	17:36	4	30
07/07/93	Sterling	16:49	1	20
07/14/93	Sterling	15:45	1	26
07/28/93	Sterling	19:00	9	25
08/18/93	Worcester	14:59	1	68
09/29/93	Worcester	19:07	7	50
12/11/93	Worcester	16:40	1	28
07/27/94	Fitchburg	15:25	1	49
07/02/97	Lancaster	16:02	1	24
07/21/99	Leominster	15:35	3	35