ECTA 10 mile trail race

I kicked off the month (10/03/20) with another “pop-up” style race.  Doug D had talked up the ECTA “Run for the Trails” 5m/10m race.  I wasn’t interested in doing virtual races, but Doug was up for racing me.  He’d do the 5m and I’d do 10.  I put the word out to my CMS teammates to see if we’d get any takers.  Happily, Jim Pawlicki (5m), Greg Putnam (10m), and Todd Callaghan (10m) all responded.  Doug ended up not being able to make it, so I was glad I’d gotten others hooked.  We met up at 7:30am for an easy 2 mile warm-up.  

The weather was ideal with temps in the 40s and brilliant sunshine.  The only drawback was the wet grass at the start meant we’d all have we feet (which was kind of funny since 99% of the course was dry).  After a quick switch into race gear and a half-mile jog to the start, we were off.  Jim was hoping to keep us in sight for the first few miles and Greg and Todd were looking to get in a race as neither had race in quite a while.  I was aiming to run under 70 minutes and thought I could run as fast as low 34’s for each loop.  I really wanted to run the second loop faster than the first, so the idea was to be a bit conservative for the first 5 miles.

Todd went out strong as we hit the big hill right away, it was a slog climbing 115’ in 2/10ths of a mile.  Greg went by me about ½ mile in and closed on Todd.  I was anywhere between 5-15 seconds back depending on the terrain.  I felt like it was a bit quick but wanted to be close enough that they’d tow me through the first loop.  Greg caught up to Todd around 2 miles and they stayed close with Todd running quicker on the rougher stuff and Greg being faster on the road and smoother surfaces. 

I kept an eye on my mile splits while also trying to keep close to the guys.  They were about 10 seconds ahead as I hit the end of lap one (4.95 miles) in 33:08.  Now my hope was to not slow significantly over the second loop.  Greg took off up the hill and was out of sight.  Todd also pulled away but I could still see him on longer straightaways.  Two miles in I was still running splits close to what I’d done on the first lap, but Todd was 20 seconds ahead.  I struggled a bit, especially over the last two miles.  The little “rolling” hills just seemed to have gotten bigger on lap 2!  I managed to keep it together and brought it home in 66:45, for a second lap of 33:37 not a terrible slowdown and a lot faster for the total time than I thought I’d be able to do.  Greg had an excellent 31+ for his second loop! We went out for another 2.5 miles to get a solid 15 mile day.  It’ll be interesting to see how we did in the virtual race but I’m only counting the real race we did.  That means I finished both on the podium and in last place!

ECTA run for the trails results:  1. Greg Putnam 64:49 2. Todd Callaghan 66:19 3. Dave Dunham 66:45