UltraBrit: Boston Buildup 25k - March 8, 2009

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Boston Buildup 25k - March 8, 2009 - Norwalk

This has been a pretty busy week for me. I wanted to write up a race report much earlier in the week, but time would not allow. Since the race I went to see UConn women play in the Big East Tourney in Hartford on Monday and Tuesday evening, I worked out at the gym late on Wednesday and stayed late at work on Thursday to finish my taxes. I have also logged in quite a few miles of running between morning and lunch time runs.

The 25k was postponed from the previous week due to the predicted bad weather that never actually materialized. With the new date the race now fell on Don's 60th Birthday. With it being one of his favorite races it seemed very appropriate to celebrate it there. On race day morning I arrived pretty early despite having a late night out the night before and having lost an hour's sleep on the time change - Spring forward. Later Frank and Emmy showed up and asked if I'd seen Don, but there was no sign of him. She had made up a card for everyone to sign and had made a poster to display on the door of the school. We took several photos of each other and then lined up for the pre-race announcements by Jim. Jim also took the time to mention that it was Don's birthday, but there was still no sign of him anywhere.

Emmy ran with Jill and I for the first half mile, but I wanted to slow down a little so she went ahead. I felt very tired and had no energy for this race and even felt that if Jill wasn't there I would have dropped out after about 2 miles. This was very unlike me since I can usually make it fine with one bad night of sleep. However, I continued to feel sluggish and ran the course pretty slowly and took walk breaks on some of the hills. It is a very hilly course, especially for the first half so it was tough going. I did get some energy back after I took a gel at about mile 6 so after that I felt much better. And no matter how sluggish I felt it was still wonderful to run with Jill.

So after posting a bunch of PRs starting with the New York marathon and for the first few races after that I was now on a roll of getting PWs for each race of the buildup series! When I mentioned this to Jill we both laughed about it since we are both just grateful to be able to run lots of miles with out pains or injury so the PRs can be put on hold for now.

Once we finished the race we got word that Don forgot to change his clocks yet again (he did the same thing before the Danbury half recently) and had started the race about half an hour late. We all laughed about it, but were also thrilled that he had made it so that we could wish him a happy birthday. We all cheered for him as he crossed the line and then we hung out with him for a while and took lots of photos.

It was a wonderful day spent with great friends.

Roy and Brian (AKA Unknown Sweetheart)