Mill City Relay

This weekend I ran in my 10^th Mill City Relay.  Over the years I’ve run with a few different teams (all of which I was and or still am a member of).  This year as last I was racing for the Gate City Striders, but for the first time I’d be on a senior (age 50+) team.  We had a very solid team with all of the guys projecting to run under 6:30 pace.  We lost Ernie Brake to a fractured toe, but picked up Jeff Hunt as a last minute replacement.  I met up with Dan Verrington at the end of our leg where we dropped his vehicle and headed to Nashua to hand out team numbers.  Dan was racing for a masters (age 40+) team for the Winner’s Circle, so the car drop was very convenient for both of us. 

I eventually found my teammates at the race start along with a vast number of people I knew from various clubs.  It is so great to see so many people turn out for this annual event.  We got to the start of our leg with a lot of time to spare.  I spent a few minutes catching up with CMS teammate Todd Callaghan (who was also doing the long leg) and even chatted quickly with Pat Moulton.  Wow, there were some really fast guys doing the long leg, which wasn’t a surprise since this is a race that a lot of clubs take seriously.

Dan and I hit the road for a 2.5 mile warm-up.  It was chilly and there was a pretty strong cross-wind as we headed north on the course and caught sight of some of the early starters finishing the short leg.  I felt tired and a little nauseous with a headache that had been bugging me for nearly a week.  It looked like this was going to be a long day.  I quickly switched into race gear and headed back out to stay loose and try to stay warm.  I ran up and down the bike path toward the Rourke Bridge and back a bunch of times.  Each time someone came into sight I looked for a GCS singlet.   I mentioned to Dan that this was the toughest part, not knowing if your hand-off would be in 30 seconds or 10 minutes.

No sooner had I said that and a GCS shirt came into view.  His number was flipped over so I yelled “What is your number?”  He replied that it was “49” which was my team’s number. Oh boy!  I was 200 meters from the exchange so I got rolling and ran with him to the exchange zone saying “not yet, not yet”.  I didn’t want to grab the baton early and chance a disqualification.  I slapped the baton on my wrist and off I went.

Almost immediately I heard footsteps and was caught by Aharon Wright from the Somerville Road Runners (SRR).  He was moving pretty fast but this might be my only chance to run with anyone.  A little way in he asked me if I did the “wolf sock race’.  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about so my first response was “huh?”.  As we caught another SRR guy he repeated his query.  I didn’t know what to say, until the other guy chimed in “no one calls it that, it is the Jack London Race”.  I chuckled; the Jack London race gives out socks that have a (lone) Wolf logo on it.  So, now that I got it I replied “yep” and he told me he finished in 3^rd place this year.   We hit the mile in 5:52 which was way under my 6:10 projected pace.  I felt pretty good and hoped to just roll with it.

Wright kept checking his watch (like every 15 seconds) and was throwing in a lot of surges, so I’d fall back and then catch up.  The wind wasn’t bad so I didn’t think I needed to stay right on him.  We got onto the bike path along the River around 2 miles into the leg and I was getting warm so I took off my gloves.  D’oh!  I dropped the baton!!!  That meant a quick stop, turn, and recover.  That put me about 10 seconds behind Wright with a long way to go.  I kept thinking “Wait ‘til 5 miles” and kept moving along with miles between 5:56 and 5:46.  At 5 I made a conscious effort to up the tempo and ran a 5:45 mile.  That cut the gap and I was now about 5 seconds back, but I just couldn’t quite close the gap.  Just after 7 miles I was passed by Chris Grange (Winner’s Circle) who was moving at a good clip.  I tried to latch onto him to drag me the final couple of seconds up to Wright but it was just a bit too fast for me.  He blew by both of us, but I had the gap down to a few steps and by 8 miles I was back on Wright.  I tried a few times to go around him but no luck.  The wind seemed to have picked up and I was starting to struggle (the last 3 miles were my slowest three of the day).  I couldn’t muster a kick and with ½ mile to go I lost ground again but reached the hand-off well ahead of schedule with a 55:40 (5:52 pace).

I could not have been happier!  My 10k split was almost as fast as I’d run at Lone Gull and the 15k split was nearly 2 minutes faster than I’d run at the NE champs.  I stopped over by the SRR group and congratulated Aharon on his run and thanked him for helping pull me to a good time.  After adding on some clothes and heading out to keep warm, Dan came in from his leg.  We finished off the day with an easy 3+ warm-down.  Later I’d find out how well our team did, we ended up taking 16^th overall and 2^nd in the 50+.  Whirlaway nuked us by over 5 minutes, but even being that close to WRT is an accomplishment.  Heck, only three masters teams beat us!  GCS ended up taking the overall Mill City Relay title, along with the award for the most teams entered.

Results:

1	DESIREES DYNASTY	AARC	MO	2:20:39	0:05:14
2	WHIRLAWAY BRATS	WRT	MO	2:27:08	0:05:28
3	THE WORM HAS TURNED	GCS	MO	2:27:41	0:05:29
4	SRR - THERE'S NO WAY ALEX SHOWS UP	SRR	MO	2:27:53	0:05:30
5	WHIRLAWAY PURGATORY	WRT	MX	2:30:50	0:05:36
6	SRR - MALE SUB-MASTERS	SRR	MX	2:31:04	0:05:37
7	SRR - TO MORROW NEVER DIES	SRR	MM	2:33:02	0:05:41
8	THIS IS NACHO BRICK	GCS	CO	2:34:16	0:05:44
9	CHRIST JOE, JUST COOK THE PATTIES!	GCS	MX	2:35:04	0:05:46
10	WCRC FAST AND FURIOUS	WCRC	MO	2:35:44	0:05:47
11	SRR - ANTUNES^3	SRR	CX	2:36:12	0:05:48
12	SUPER SENIORS	WRT	MS	2:36:27	0:05:49
13	100% ABV	GLRR	MO	2:37:34	0:05:51
14	WICKED REDEMPTION	WRC	MM	2:37:46	0:05:52
15	BRICK CHASERS	GDTC	MM	2:38:12	0:05:53
16	A STRING OF EXPLETIVES	GCS	MS	2:41:17	0:06:00
17	WCRC NSYNC	WCRC	MX	2:41:23	0:06:00
18	WHIRLAWAY COED OPEN	WRT	CO	2:42:32	0:06:03
19	GRATEFULLY NOT DEAD	GCS	MM	2:43:19	0:06:04
20	VIA CON DIOS	AARC	MX	2:43:24	0:06:04

My Splits:

Mile	Rolling
5:52
5:56	11:48
5:46	17:34
		5k =	18:08
5:46	23:20
5:54	29:14
5:45	34:59
		10k =	0:36:12
5:56	40:55		(18:04)
5:53	46:48
5:55	52:43
		15k =	0:54:29
	55:40		(18:17)

My history at the MCR

Date	Leg #	Start Loc	Dist	Time	Pace	Teams
12/06/87	4	Lowell	9.60	48:05	5:01	30
12/04/88	2	Tyngsboro	6.60	33:30	5:05	73
12/02/90	4	Lowell	9.60	48:23	5:02	77
12/06/92	5	Tyngsboro	4.60	22:09	4:49	50
12/04/94	3	Lowell	2.30	11:29	5:00	120
12/08/02	4	Lowell	9.30	54:10	5:49	122
12/05/04	4	Lowell	9.40	54:35	5:48	119
12/03/06	4	Lowell	9.40	55:19	5:53	142
12/08/13	2	Nashua	4.75	28:58	6:06	199
12/7/2014	4	Lowell	9.50	55:40	5:52	210