July was a month full of racing, injuries, long runs, and fun. I started the month at Loon mountain, marking the course and eating wild strawberries the day before the race. The day turned out to be pretty warm (hot) and many soaked their singlets in the Pemi prior to the start, many more went without a singlet. The lead pack went out conservatively and I hovered just out of the top ten for the first mile. I slowly moved up as the trail got steeper and by the time we reached the top of the gondola at 4 miles I had moved up to 8th and was right behind Kevin Tilton and Jim Johnson. I crossed the finish line in a surprising 5th, four minutes behind Eric Blake, and collapsed to the ground. Eric Morse ran a very strong race setting a new 40+ course record 1:30 ahead of me.
I had a good week of training leading up to Mt Ascutney despite the 90 degree temps and high humidity. As we were finishing our warm-up the sun fully burned off the fog and the temp had gone up into the 70’s with some pretty good humidity. I guess it would be typical Ascutney weather.
The pack went out
conservatively, so conservatively that at about ½ mile I was in the lead.
That didn’t last long as Eric moved to the front and towed Kevin, Jim, and
Justin along with him. I never quite closed the gap on Kevin, finishing
13 seconds back in third place. Eric took the win in a 40+ course record,
1:21 ahead of me.
After a few minutes of recover we set off with pretty much the entire top 10 plus a bunch of others and ran the additional ¾ mile to the true summit of the mountain.
On Wednesday I headed to Lynn woods hoping to test myself on the course we’ll run the relay later in the summer. The course was rocky and narrow unlike most of the wide dirt roads in Lynn woods.
At the start it was noted “If you don’t know where to go, follow someone who does”, which is kind of funny unless you don’t know where to go. I took off and only one kid went with me. He ended up running the long course and as he headed off I figured I had the race in hand, but I was also shooting for a good time (whatever that is). Oddly enough on the exact date 16 years ago I ran 2 minutes faster.
On Saturday I headed up to Concord NH to finally finish up the CAR series. It was hot, humid, and sunny and I went out pretty hard chasing Scott Clark. I could see Dan as he worked his way onto the back of a big lead pack. I basically ran the entire race alone, never quite catching Scott and no one catching me. Dan took 6th overall and was top 40+. Scott ran a fine 27:28, which wasn’t quite enough to close as he took third in the series. I kicked it in and ran 27:50 which is a 40+ PR for me and I was happy to see I was 23 seconds faster than last year. I also ended up fourth in the series and got $100 for that and we all got gym bags for doing all of the races in the series.
Next up was the USATF 10 mile race (Newburyport). I felt lousy all day. Everyone seemed to just sprint out, except Dan V. who just chugged out at his steady clip. Dave Quintal and I planned on running together at 5:45 pace if all went well. Funny thing was that the tempo seemed faster but the split times didn’t support that feeling. I ended up running just a bit under 60 minutes (59:29) for 80th overall and 7th in the 40-44. David ran 60:12 for 8th in the 45-49.
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