Looking back - December 2016

 

5 years ago (December 2016):  I was still coming back from surgery in mid-November so I only snuck in one race during this month.  The BU Mini meet has a limited schedule of indoor track races and the meet is very popular.  The heats are set up based on whatever times people put in.  So as long as people are honest you’ll be in a heat and have folks to run with.  I was ahead of schedule coming back to running and felt that a 3,000 meter race would be a great chance to see where my fitness was.

 

There were 20 runners in my heat with times from 10:00 to 11:00, so it would spread out pretty well once we got going (I’d seeded myself at 10:30).  Off we went and most of the field was in front of me 100 meters into it.  I wasn’t too worried and didn’t want to push too hard too early.  I did pass a couple of runners and slowly closed on the three Whirlaway runners (Craig Fram, Paul Hammon, and Heather Mahoney) who were 2 or 3 seconds up by ½ mile (2:48.8)  I closed the gap and just before the mile went around them hitting the mile in 5:34.7.  With a half-mile to go I upped the tempo before getting to the bell lap.  I knew I was going to be under my seed time and pushed as hard as possible that last lap hoping to crack 10:20.  I could not have been more pleased with the result!  I was only 6 seconds slower than I’d run at the beginning of the year but I’ve only been running for four weeks. 

 

Results of heat 5

1 Dwyer Grimes              9:58.6

2 Meagan Boucher          10:02.5

3 James Pawlicki             10:04.0 CMS

4 Brian McNeice              10:08.4

5 Kevin Hill                     10:15.3

6 Eliza Lukens-Day          10:15.4

7 Dave Dunham              10:19.4 CMS

8 Heather Mahoney         10:24.1

9 Craig Fram                  10:26.9