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Wayland XC Festival

October 13, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
First of all, congratulations to all you amazing runners who made us alumni so proud two days ago at Glory Days. And what a weekend for running! I have mixed feeling about Kipchoge's feat (feel free to ask), but far more exciting is that he inspired his fellow Kenyan Brigid Kosgay to run a REAL world record, and one that in my mind seems far more significant since the men's marathon record has been creeping down steadily while the women's has stood unbroken for 16 years. Breaking the 2:15 barrier is HUGE and I wish this was getting the media attention it deserved.
Onto my race...

I woke up at 4:20am in Chicago to catch a plane back to Boston to run this race. This is not what you might call "a good night's sleep" though I did get a hardcore 2 hours snooze on the plane. When I got back to Cambridge my car battery was (still) dead and the jump-started was (still) dead, as I'd known since yesterday when it almost caused me to miss Ana and Spills's race. I had basically half an hour to spare, and by spare I mean sacrifice any hopes of getting a good warmup, I used that time to recharge the jump-starter kit and contemplate the cost of taking a Lyft all the way out the beyond-the-beltway suburbs and back. I managed to get the car started just in the nick of time and made it to the course with 16 minutes to spare.

After registering and paying the entrance fee, I chatted a bit with a race official about how the course had changed since I last ran it due to construction. I ran into this older guy in my club who does all the XC races, as well as Chris Pasko the father of a girl I used to coach at Milton and himself a Williams alum. That left me about 3 minutes to warm up, though I did get 2 striders and some leg swings in while everyone else was standing respectfully with their hats off and heads bowed to hear the national anthem. All I can say is, if they want me to pay my respects to the flag, they should do it at the start of the day, not seconds prior to the gun going off. I felt energetic and free of any soreness or tiredness, which surprised me. I guess naps do count as sleeping.

I'm not sure quite what to make of my splits:
6:00
6:21
5:40

The first mile was around the edges of grassy fields: mostly flat but with some soft spots and sharp turns that break your momentum. I was breathing hardish for the first half mile then kinda went on autopilot. Could I have run faster? Sure. Should I have? Don't know.

The second mile was in the woods on a root-filled twisty narrow trail. The first part up a significant hill where I both passed and got passed, followed by a short sweet dash along a grass-covered aqueduct with perfect footing where I made up some serious ground, and then back down the hill along a path was too treacherous and winding to take full advantage of it. It was obviously possible to run this faster (safely) since other people did, or at least make up more time in less technical parts. I guess there is where I could have pushed more, but I was catching people; who knows.

The third mile was retracing the original fields in the opposite direction. I apparently did a solid job here since my time was 41 seconds faster than the mile before. I picked off a lot of guys and kept telling myself to just get an pass the next pack and not to worry about whether or I could sustain it--I'd cross the bridge if I came to it. At one point I was about to settle but then I thought to myself "What would Ana Gunther and Sarah Pillard say to me if they were out watching" and the answer was obviously "the same thing I said to them yesterday--catch those people, you can do it!" So pretending I had someone cheering to show off for I gave myself a push and climbed to the next pack, again and again. My final kick wasn't quite in top gear, but it was fine.

All in all, I'm a bit frustrated not to be in better shape. It's mid-season now, I trained solidly over the summer though not high mileage or workouts, and despite turning 34 tomorrow, I'm not so old that my speed should really be giving out in this sort of distance. I looked back at my results in this race from 2012 and saw that I'd run about the same time as today, so that's a good sign that I haven't slowed down (interesting, in 2012 I ran this with Biersteker and we registered as the "Mighty Hoppers." Had I ran under the BAA like I was technically supposed to I actually would have been the second point-scorer for the club). I'm not sure how to compare this course to the XC course I did 4 weeks ago with Rob--both were challenging in different ways, but I'd have like to have improved my time by more than just 10 seconds. I guess it the end it was a good race with a pretty good effort and the only way to be faster would have been a little bit more effort everywhere the course was flat and straight--there's no long stretch where I was really settling or slacking. Hopefully, next weekend's cross country race will be faster. It's an even longer drive from Cambridge than this one was, but I hear it's supposed to be a fast course...