Hopkinton 5k series

This weekend I headed up to the Hopkinton (NH) 5k series race number one.  The Raffio’s started putting this race on back in 2021 when it was hard to find races due to the pandemic. The course is a simple out and back on quiet side roads that features about ½ mile of dirt road which is notoriously icy.  That also happens to be the part of the course with the only real hills two little bumps that don’t feel so little when racing. In all there is a little over 100’ of climb/drop.  I’ve done pretty well here and in fact picked up my first win of the year on this course last February.

I was not feeling very good in the days leading up to the race.  I generally run on “feel” and try to keep my morning runs in the ‘comfortably hard’ level.  Usually I’ll run anywhere from 8:30 pace (on a Monday after racing) down to slightly under 8’s by the end of the week.  This week I ran mostly in the 810-820 range and just felt flat.  Nothing in particular bothering me (just the regular stuff – glute/hamstring, ankle) just not feeling great.  I did start to feel a bit better on Friday and that is when I decided to give Hopkinton a go.  My goal was to run under 6:00 pace, which seemed reasonable since I’d run 5+ miles at 6’s back in December.

It was 22 degrees and sunny when I got to Hopkinton, not terrible for early January.  I previewed the course for a warm-up and the hill was indeed a bit icy and had some frozen ruts. The parking lot/driveway to the fitness club was a mess.  I had to wonder how they could run a business that relies on people showing up at the facility and NOT do a good job of shoveling the driveway.  Weird since it was only a couple of inches of snow.  They moved the start finish closer to the road so we’d only run about 50 yards on that before getting onto better footing.  That shortened the race to just a touch over 3 miles.

After a mile more of warm-up with some strides I joined the 34 others at the start.  After a very cautious start I pushed the pace and could not hear anyone behind me.  That was both good and bad.  I was pretty sure that baring disaster I’d get a win but it’d be a time trial, no one would be pushing the pace.  My watch beeped at the ½ (3:03) which wasn’t too bad, it felt a lot faster but I was still hopeful of a decent time.  A 3:06 for the second half meant that I would definitely not be seeing 6’s on this day.  I slowed significantly on the climb (3:13) but sort of bounced back (3:09) coming back.  I was able to see that I had a 30 second lead at the turn so it probably would’ve been easy to slow down.  I managed a 3:04 and 3:04 to close it out in 18:41.  I can’t complain about the effort, I definitely worked hard but 6:13 pace is pretty slow for where my training is at (or at least where I thought it was at!).  The win gave me my 45^th consecutive year with at least one first place finish.

HOPKINTON WINTER 5k SERIES RACE 01/08/23

1          18:41.7  6:02      Dave Dunham     58M      Bradford MA       M5559

2          19:53.7  6:25      Allison Davis       35F       Contoocook NH   F3539

3          21:06.5  6:48      Sarah Galligan     35F       Concord NH        F3539

4          21:40.7  6:59      Ryleigh Lorimer   27F       Sanbornton NH    F2529

5          21:45.5  7:01      Ashley Riccio       29F       Barrington NH     F2529

6          21:58.6  7:05      Justin Nimmo      21M      Exeter NH           M2024

7          22:19.7  7:12      Sky Sobel           40M      Contoocook NH   M4044

8          23:02.4  7:25      Brendan Curran   32M      Manchester NH    M3034

9          24:52.6  8:01      Max Goupil         12M      Contoocook NH   M1014

10         24:55.8  8:02      Chris Baerman     57M      Laconia NH         M5559