Surprised heck out of myself. Drove over to Russellville for the race, and there's snow everywhere. Including quite a lot on the trails. I'm thinking, OK, my legs are a little sore from the tempo run the other day, and now I've got to dodge white stuff? This is not going to go well. Plus the Garmin was malfunctioning, so the pace would have to be by feel. Decided I wasn't going to worry about the time much, just run as well as I could and pass as many people as I could. There was chip timing, but no mat at the start, which is kinda screwy.
First mistake was lining up too far back. That was an issue because the trail was only about 10 feet wide, and there was no going off the edge to pass somebody unless I had snowshoes on. So there was a lot of dodging traffic -- and ice. I was really surprised to get to the 1-mile mark and see 7:09 (started my watch when I hit the line, not at the gun). By then, the field had thinned out and I only had to dodge frozen stuff, which wasn't too often once the course got out of the densest woods.
So now I'm just trying to pass people. Kids, adults, just pass people. But no women; the women's race was separate and an hour earlier. Did a good job too. Passed plenty, nobody passed me in the last two miles. I was not entirely happy with my effort (thought I could have pushed it a bit more), but was not too disappointed to hit my watch button at the line and see 22:37 (with no mat at the start, chip time would be 22:42). I was just about a minute slower than my goal, but as I said, I left some of my race on that tempo run Wednesday afternoon, and this was my first race in nine months.
I talked to Alex from the hospital and her husband for a few minutes, then ran the course again, slowly, to get in a few more miles. Get back to the start and they're beginning the awards ceremony. I thought maybe, just maybe, I might get some AG bling, so I hung around. Was surprised when a guy walked up beside me and said, "Are you Spiderpig?" Turns out he's a RWOL lurker from West Fork named Lance who is also training for Boston. Also turns out he's a lot faster than me; he won the 41-45 AG in 19-something.
So they're running through the awards, women, kids, then men. Lance collected his award. Then they get to the 50-54. He announces first, and I'm thinking, OK, I'm not TOO far behind that. Then second. Then third, and he calls MY name. I think I had to pick my jaw up out of the snow. I was really stunned.
After the awards, double-checked my time and the overall finish. I was 56th out of 126 men. The main thing is I got the hardware, and a nice shot of confidence going into the last nine weeks of training. | 