Rhody 5k

Full results here.

Today I completed my trifecta of races for the week - the Hollis Fast 5k on Wednesday, the 1500m at the NB Twilight Series last night and the Rhody 5k today. The GCS crew met in Nashua at 6:45AM for the hour and a half drive down to Lincoln, RI. I think that we should have started out a little earlier because we cut it pretty close to the start of the race, but the lines were short and I was still able to get in my full warm-up. Anyway, I was feeling surprisingly good, albeit a bit tired. I was not really able to sleep at all last night and just tossed and turned until 5:30AM when I finally just got up. The same thing happened after the race on Wednesday too. I have never experienced that, but I do not think it hurt me too much today other than taking away a little sharpness.

I was pretty anxious for this race today because knew that a lot of the top guns in New England were going to show and I feel like I still have something to prove in my comeback - I ran crappy in my only other NE Grand Prix race (New Bedford 12k) and have not had any good road races. I was sure the race up front was going to go out fast when I saw Mark Carroll and Pat Tarpy (I guess he shut down his blog) warming up on the course. I knew that I could not go out in 4:45-4:50 and hold on so my plan was to go out in 4:55-5:00 for the first mile, which was slightly uphill, to assess how I felt and then move based on this. I felt pretty calm the whole warm-up and standing around at the starting line. I am not sure if this was a confident calm or if was a fatigue-induced calm but I was loose and ready to roll. As the gun went off people took off like a flash and I was running in the middle of a large pack. I hit the first mile in 5:00, pretty much on target, and probably in 30+ place. I felt good and saw several people ahead of me that I knew including Jim Johnson from CMS and the GBTC crew of Andrew Womack, Dan Smith and Kevin Somers so I pushed down one of the only small hills on the course just after the mile marker to get up with Dan and Kevin. I never really caught them but through out the second mile I saw 3 BAA guys blow up and drop out of the race and I passed upwards of 10 people, moving me into roughly 20th place. The end of the second mile had a slight uphill and I hit 2 miles in 10:03 (5:03) felling pretty good. Heading back down the slight uphill we run up in mile 1 I knew that the finish was getting close and I was continuing to pick off a couple people that I had never beaten before including Justin Fyffe (although I am sure he was pretty tired from VCM and Pack Manadnock) and Nick Wheeler. This is the point in the race where you either make it or break it - I knew that I had to keep pushing and there were lots of people to catch but both mentally and physically I could not dig any deeper or push any harder than I was going. Dan and Kevin started to pull away from me in the last half mile and I really tried to dig deep but found nothing there. I passed 1 or 2 guys in the last quarter mile before we entered the track passing through three miles in 15:02 (4:59) but pretty much cruised the finish on the track to cross the line in 15:35 (0:33) for 14th place.

Over all I am very pleased with this race, especially considering how many times I raced this week. It was my fastest 5k since getting back into running even though I was tired and it was somewhere between 75 and 80 degrees. I have one more race planned next weekend (the 5000m at the final NB Twilight Meet) where I hope to lower my 5k time to somewhere between 15:10 and 15:20. After this I will take a very small break and then start my ramp for the Bay State Marathon in October.

Photos are thanks to Tom Derderian and Jim Johnson.