Wachusett Mountain

 I'd sort of lost my desire to do mountain races after the injury at Loon mountain in 2022, but Wachusett mountain has always been one of my favorite races.  The only other race I've done more times is Mt Washington.  My last Wachusett in 2022 went well and when RD Kim Gordon invited me to join the fun this year, I could not resist.  It was kind of funny when I went to the CMS page and found this.

I signed up for what I hoped would be my 25th time finishing this race (finishing a mountain race isn't as guaranteed as I used to think).  I was having a surprisingly good week, maybe coming off of the high of a decent race at the 5k championships.  The only major issue was my knee which has been very sore for a month.  I got an MRI Friday and will get the results next week.  I kept my mileage up and had a very fast Friday morning run, I went with how I felt which probably isn't a good idea the day before a race.  I'm enjoying training and trying to take things one day at a time.  If I feel good I try to just roll with it.  I'll have to watch for that if I want to have something in the tank on race day.

I headed off to Princeton/Westminster a little early and found one of the last shaded spots.  Parking is never an issue in the ski area parking lot.  Nearly 400 showed up which was just shy of the record.  It was already kind of warm at 8:30 when I headed out to warm-up.

It was great to see so many of my "mountain friends".  It was also great to see so many of my CMS teammates (including the women's team that was working the race).  I headed out on my own for a 3 mile warm-up.  As I did in 2022 I ran out/back over the last 1.5 of the course.  I felt pretty lousy and tried to put that down to nerves, climb, bad footing (the road had been redone and a lot of pointy rocks were put down), and the warm morning.  It wasn't hot like the previous days but 70s and sunny.  Fortunately a good portion of the course would be shaded.

I decided to not use carbon fiber shoes and went with road flats with a decent tread to help with footing on the dirt road (last 2.5 miles).  An easy jog to the start and it was time to go. 

I got a nice shout out from the RD about scoring the series and we were off.  Wow, it went out fast.  I had a good idea of what I needed to run for splits to take Matt Curran's 60+ CR (23:51).  Based on my 5k times compared to previous years I was looking for around 23:30.  As we passed the parking lot at 1/2 mile I counted 35 in front of me.  By the mile I was catching some of the quicker starters and feeling like I was in a groove.  The 8:02 was just a little slower than I'd hoped for.  I caught a couple of more guys as we moved into the Wachusett reservation.  That'd be it a 7:53 second mile had me right about where I wanted to be.  I was working with another guy and never lost focus on the guys in front of me.  I lost some steam over the last .85 miles and although I outkicked the guy I was with (for 25th place) I saw the course record tick away and I crossed the line 1 second slower than the record.

My goal for the descent was to not get hurt but also to run as hard as I could.  A lofty goal.  I lost a spot right away and then had 3 go by me the last half mile.  Mostly I was just glad to get down (relatively safely).  I ended up 22nd in the 10k as some chose to not continue racing after the summit.  The race has had this race within a race since 2015.  

After the race I went out on the course for an easy 2 miles.  It wasn't that easy as I went back out on the course.  I stuck around for the awards and picked up a nice CMS lunch bag for taking the 60+ title.