Got up early and did a 5-mile warm-up. It was still in the teens and I was just hoping things would warm-up a bit for the late morning road race...got home and did another 1/2 mile in the TM to loosen up the legs from the cold.
By race time it was 26 degrees w/10-12 mph winds. Decided to go with shorts. I'll give my best on the race results. It was all a bit confusing due to a missed turn as well as the times being 1-minute off for some reason.
Mile 1: 6:15- We took off and ran the first stretch on road, then about 1/4 mile on icy trail with a couple bridges (not too icy) and then a hard road surface. Felt good about the pace...very comfortable
Mile 2: 6:25- First part of this stretch went slightly uphill into Whites Woods and then back downhill through mostly clear trails. One small section (.1 mile) was tough to gain footing in. Again, felt strong.
Mile 3: 6:26- Back on a hard road surface. Purposely kept a steady pace with hopes of "turning it on" more towards the 2nd half of the race. Was happy to see my pace come in under 6:30. Was holding about 10th place at this stage.
Mile 4: 7:09- Not a misprint in the time. I actually turned it up a tad, but missed the turn. I was running by myself against the traffic of another 200 runners or so and completely missed the turn arrow. Someone against the grain yelled, "you running the race?" Yes. "You missed the turn!" This caused a slight panic and I immediately turned back. Two guys behind me missed the turn as well. It costed me 2 places in the final standings and I'm guestimating about 40 seconds in my overall time. In my final stated time I conservatively counted this mile as 6:30 which would still make it my slowest mile.
Mile 5: 6:17- This is where the really confusing part sets in. I literally crossed the 4-mile mark with a 26:10 time. Crossing the finish line, they posted my final time at 31:27. This would have given me a 5:17 time for my final mile...definitely impossible. Talking with the folks around me, they all felt their posted time was a minute off. Who knows what happened? Kind of frustrating. I had my stopwatch on for the entire race and the times all seemed to match, but of course I forgot to punch stop at the finish, trusting they had their act together. The final mile definitely felt like a mile and within a minute or so after finishing, I did look down and see 33 something on my watch and was like, "Ah! Forgot to stop it!!" I'm giving myself a 6:17 (adding an extra minute, which is probably close to accurate...probably my best mile other than mile 1).
Officially, their first posting gave me a 31:27 (due to complaints they are going to revisit it). According to my guestimate, I ran a 32:27, but am going to mark it down as 31:48 to accomodate the wrong turn in mile 4. I think I was fair to give it a 6:30. Also, they put me down as 17th place, but there were two courses that blended together (3-miler, 5-miler) at the finish. It was hard to tell how many in front of me were from the 3-mile race, but I started off with about 10-12 runners and nobody passed me (except for the 2 at the missed turn). I was awarded 3rd place for my age division. Overall, a great experience, yet would have loved to know exactly what my time was...might run a little bit of a recovery in the evening.
Ran another 4.5 on the TM. Decided to get it done while my legs were still fresh. Included a 3-mile tempo @ 6:15 pace. Felt good. Also, spoke with someone who thinks the last mile of our race today was more like .85 miles...makes sense. Good week of running.
Found out the course is 4.8 miles...they recorded my time as 31:17. Take away the missed turn (39 seconds) and my time is pretty close to 30:38. This gives me a pace of approx 6:23 for the race.
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