Sunday, April 19, 2009

Donnelly Dash - 3.5 Mile - April 19, 2009

Donnelly Dash - 3.5 Mile
Fairfield, CT
April 19, 2009

Race Results:
http://www.hitekracing.com/results09/fair0419.htm

It turned out to be a very pleasant morning for the 5th annual running of the Donnelly Dash. The temperature about about 10 degrees warmer than expected and the sun was out.

I met up with John and Kellie before the race. I also had a chance to chat with Petra and Maria who I hadn't seen for several weeks. I briefly saw Brian, Torpedo and Dawn. Tony was also there to provide post-race massage.

Right before the race started Kellie, John and I saw Rob so we all chatted until it was time to start. I couldn't really remember the course, but knew that the beginning was uphill. I was happily surprised that the hill wasn't too steep or long. I started out pretty fast and was concerned about fading out, but I set my sights on two women ahead of me that I would try to keep up with. I was able to pass one of them and I kept the other one in sight until the last turn for the finish. Towards the end of mile 2 and beginning of mile 3 there was another hill that wasn't too steep, but seemed to be pretty long. I was determined to stay strong knowing that the end of the race was a downhill.

After the race I got a massage from Tony and then hung out with Kellie, John and Rob while we waited for the awards presentations. I was the 6th female to finish and won a trophy for finishing 2nd in my division. John also won a trophy for finishing 3rd in his division.

My manual splits: 7:33, 7:45, 7:36, 3:28 = 26:21
Official Average Pace: 7:33
My GPS splits: 7:17, 7:43, 7:26, 3:54 (7:11 pace) = 26:21
Average GPS Pace: 7:26
GPS distance 3.54 miles

John and Kellie



Kate and Kellie



Brian



Marty and Rick



Kayla, four year old finisher!



Torpedo and Tony



John and Rob



Kate



John, Kate and Rob



Tony and Kellie



John



John



John and Kate



Janis, Monica, Larry, ?, Patty, Kate and John

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Bunny Boogie - 3 Miler - April 11, 2009



http://www.clubct.org/Results/09Results/09BunnyBoogieRes.html

We had a pretty cold and wet morning for the Bunny Boogie 3 miler. Luckily, the rain held off until close to the start of the race and even then it remained pretty light throughout the race. There were a few puddles close to the finish line, but other than that the conditions were good. The rain picked up during the chocolate bunny awards presentations, but at that point we were all under the shelter of the gazebo.

This race has a 2:30 head start for women to try to get the winning man and woman to come in very close to each other at the end. For the first time in history of this race the winning woman beat the winning guy to the line. I enjoy this setup for the start as it gives me an opportunity to see the top men run by me part way through the race. At the start line I was talking with Frank, Emmy, Rob and Jeanette.

Emmy, who broke her age group record for the Umstead 100 miler the previous weekend and Frank, who missed the 100 miler due to being diagnosed with pneumonia were both concerned about not feeling well enough to have a strong race. However, Emmy passed by me within the first quarter mile and then Frank passed me in the last half mile. I tried to keep up with Frank at the end, but he was running really fast. Emmy ended up placing first in her division.

My splits were: 7:21, 7:55, 7:11 = 22:27 Average Pace: 7:29

This is a net downhill course and my time was 13 seconds slower than my best time in this race.

Photos:

Jeanette



Jeanette



Jeanette and John





Frank



John, Jeanette and Frank



Emmy, Rob, Kate, John and Frank



Rob and John



Rob



Chocolate Bunnies



Jim



Bob



Emmy with her Bunny age group award

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Danbury Half Marathon - April 5th, 2009



http://www.jbsports.com/dan09half%20results%20a.htm

This would be my 4th time running the Danbury half marathon and my first time running the race with Jill. We had run the course as a training run about a month earlier so she was familiar with it also. Jill had been staying with her father in Norwalk so we car pooled to the race. We arrived shortly before 9am only to find that the race time was 10:20 am instead of 10am. We had a lot of time to kill, but knew that we would see many friends there. We immediately met up with Brian and Torpedo and chatted to them for a while. We spent time catching up with Jeanette who has been taking some time off due to ITB pain. Jill and I also got a pre-race massage from Jeanette's husband, Tony. We also saw Don, LuAnne and Cindy.

It was now getting close to race time so Jill, Jeanette, Cindy and I decided to go to the ladies room one more time and then head outside. As usual, the bathroom line was very long and it was about 10:10 by the time we headed outside. We had to go to my car to drop off my camera and pick up our water bottles. The four of us were taking our time at the car and weren't paying attention to what time it was. Next thing you know we are walking up the street to the start line and Jill looks at her watch and tells us it's 10:20! I look at mine and it has 10:21! Oh my!!! The four of us started sprinting up the street towards the start line and as we do so the race starts and all the runners are running towards us. We weren't sure if there was a start mat to record our chips so we had to play it safe and pass all the runners to get back to the start before turning around and heading back out again. Once we did turn around we then had the task of trying to get around all the slower back-of-the pack runners to get up with the ones who would be running our pace. After about 5 minutes we settled in and laughed about the situation. I have never been late to a start and think it's especially funny since we got to the race almost and hour and a half before hand.

The course has one small loop around the Rogers park and then has a larger loop that goes through Danbury, Bethel and Redding. The larger loops goes up Mountainville Road to Reservoir Street to Route 53 and then to Side Cut Road to Long Ridge Road. There is a hill at the end of Reservoir Street and another one going up Route 53 and then Long Ridge Road has a series of rolling hills before hitting a wonderful downhill at about mile 11 to get us back to Mountainville Road and to head back to the finish. Jill has always made mention to me being a good hill runner, but we would find ourselves both walking a little on some of the hills in the Boston Buildup Series due to me having to quickly add mileage after coming off an injury. However, Jill was able to run the entire 4 miles up Wurtsboro Mountain in the 30k the previous weekend and we were both ran all the hills on this course also.

Jill and I had no specific time goals, but wanted to run a comfortable pace until the last mile. Once we got to the last mile we wanted to pick it up a little and then Jill wanted me to help her with a good finishing kick in the last stretch. The big downhill at mile 11 really energized me and gave me a huge surge of energy, but that didn't last too long. There was one last little hill right before the 12 mile marker that made me feel like I was crawling. However, right after that I knew that we had a job to do and had to pick it up a little. I could sense Jill trying to pick it up a little - although she said that it was me who was going faster. We ended up running pretty strong through the last 1.1 miles with a significant surge for the last 1/4 mile. Our splits from the course mile markers were 8:11, 8:52, 9:13, 8:56, 8:58, 9:27, 8:52, 9:16, 9:55, 9:47, 8:55, 8:19, 9:03 (last 1.1) = 1:57:43. Our official finish times were 1:58:35 and 1:58:36 with a 9:04 pace.

Upon finishing the race we saw LuAnne and Brian's friend, Dawn, who had finished just in front of us. We also saw Steve, from my work, who was pretty happy with his race. Jill and I then ran back out on the course to see how Jeanette was doing. We saw her coming towards us with about half a mile to go and she looked good and had a big smile on her face. We cheered for her and then joined her to run her in. She was feeling strong and didn't have any significant problems with her IT band.

We went inside for a while to stretch out and meet up with Cindy who had invited us back to her husband, Victor's restaurant for pizza after the race. The restaurant (Nick's) didn't open until 3pm so we had the place to ourselves. Victor and I had been co-workers back in the 80s so it was wonderful to see him again after all these years. We had a great time hanging out, talking about the race and our plans for volunteering at the upcoming Lake Waramaug Ultras. The pizza was delicious! :o)

Tony and Jill


Jeanette, Jill and Kate



Tony and Jill


Tony and Kate



Don and Jill


Tony

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

April Fool's 5k - Easton, CT - April 4, 2009



http://www.hitekracing.com/results09/east0404.htm

I had not planned to run this race since I was signed up to run the Danbury Half marathon the next day. However, two of my friends had told me that they would be running it and I've never run it before so I thought it would be fun. The drive up Morehouse Road from Fairfield into Easton was a very pretty. The race started at Staples Elementary School, which looked like a beautifully updated farmhouse.

When I got there I saw Brian, Kellie, Richard and Donna. Kellie also introduced me to her friend, Heather. We were all surprised at how cold and windy it was and that it was raining. There were many families with little kids at this race and it was funny to see some of the kids dressed up to run in sweaters.

The rain stopped by the time the race started and the wind seemed to die down significantly also. I found the weather to be really good for running. We all lined up at the start line and tried to encourage some of the smaller kids to move back from the front line so that they wouldn't get trampled.

I started out the race at a fast pace due to being caught up in the crowd. The first mile was mostly downhill so I was very happy with the fast start. I slowed down significantly on the hill, but then picked it up again after that. My splits from my GPS watch were: 7:13, 7:43, 7:55, :32 = 23:24 3:07 miles average of a 7:37 pace.

As soon as I finished I cheered for Kellie and Heather. Well, I don't know if 'cheering' is really the term I should use since I was actually 'yelling' to Kellie that she had to pick it up and beat the woman in front of her. She made me proud by going into a full sprint and leaving the woman in her dust! Go Girl! We then back inside for some post-race refreshments. They had a great selection of bagels, prepared foods and drinks.

Kellie, Heather and I chatted while they picked out numbers in the raffle and awarded trophies to the winners and age group leaders. I was very happy to find out that I had earned a trophy by finishing 1st in my divison.

Brian

Donna

Kellie and Heather

Me

Richard

Fred, Kate and Richard