UltraBrit: June 12th-14th, 2009 - 3 Races in one Weekend again!

Another 3 race weekend! It started with the Friday evening Cook Your Buns 3 mile +/- race at Tod's Point in Greenwich. It was a rainy and dreary day, but by race time the sun had come out and it was a little muggy. I got to hang out with some good friends before and after the race. John and I also ran a small part of the course as a warm-up. The course is run on grass, trails, asphalt and a small beach section.

Once the race started I ran with George until we were able to catch up to John G. The three of us ran together for a while and then I went ahead for the final part of the course.

My splits:
Mile 1: 8:17
Mile 2: 8:19
Final .86: 7:03 (8:11 pace)
Total: 23:39
Pace: 8:16
2.86 miles

Cook Your Buns Race Results

Tony T (massage therapist) and Me

Emmy and I

Tommy and Katey

Kate and Frank

Frank and Emmy

Luis M

John and Emmy

Frank, John and Emmy

George

Emmy and Sean

Tom, Frank and John

Luis

Luis and his family

Mickey

Me coming in towards the beach section

George and John

Wow! It looks like I'm running really fast!

Frank'n burger

John

John and I

John

Kevin, Annette and Tommy

Frank

The next race of the weekend was the Norwalk Summer Series 3 miler. It was a little warm and muggy, but not too bad. As usual I got to hang out with many of my friends before the race. It was nice to see my former boss, Steve, and his daughter, Lindsey. Lindsey, who is 16 years old, has been running well in high school and her dad was expecting her to run strong in the race. The days of him running slowly to run with his daughter are long gone. He now has no chance of keeping up with her. It was also nice to see Frank's daughter, Katie.

It was Emmy's birthday so I spent much of the time being goofy with her by constantly wishing her a happy birthday.

I was disappointed the John had not showed up for the race, but at last minute as we are lining up at the start he made his entrance - pulling an 'Emmy'!

The beginning of the race started out pretty fast due to the slight downhill section coming out of the school. Luis was just ahead of me so I was hoping to keep up with him. However, even as we started to go uphill our pace was much faster that I am used to. We were just coming out of the high 6s into the low 7s! At this point my legs felt a little tired and I was struggling with the humidity. I backed off and let Luis go around the 1 mile mark and at that time Roy came up from behind. I asked him to trip Luis for me, but all he did was encourage me to try to catch him on the hills. ;o) Sherry passed me after about a mile and a half and then Rob, who missed the start, passed me in the last half mile. Those last two miles felt like a struggle, but I was still able to get a PR for that course.

Upon finishing the race I went over to see how Lindsey had done and found out that she had won the race for the women!! I was so happy for her. She had to sprint to pass and beat the second place woman on the finishing stretch.

We all hung around for a while after the race to chat and check out the standings. Don didn't have the trophies with him, but he still went through the process of announcing the division placements. I placed 3rd in my division.

My splits:
Mile 1: 7:16
Mile 2: 7:59
Final .99: 7:41 (7:48 pace)
Total: 22:57
Pace: 7:41
2.99 miles

Norwalk Summer Series 3 miler race results

Katie and Katey

Frank and Dawn

Roy and Frank

Sherry and Emmy

Brian, Steve and Lindsey

Lindsey, Kate and Brian

Sherry and Don

City of Norwalk Proclamation for Mother's Day 10k Race

Monica

Katie, Frank and Dawn

Birthday Girl - Emmy

Jeanette

Evan, Frank and Katie

John, Sean, Ikuko and Evan

John, Sean, Ikuko, Kaz and Evan

Jeanette

Rob and Roy

Steve, Steve and Lindsey

George B, Emmy and LuAnne

Luis

Frank

Jeanette, Kate and John - Showing off our Vermont marathon shirts

Emmy and Rob

Rob, Emmy, Frank and Katie

Frank

Rob and Emmy

Sean and John

Roy

Brian

Don

The 3rd race of the weekend was Run for the Rock 5k in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport. I was happy that it was a cool morning.

I met up with Kellie, Cindy, George and Brian and later saw Cathy, who I hadn't seen since last October.

We started out the race a little too fast as usual, but in telling George that he still didn't seem to want to slow down. We were running at less than a 7 minute pace at the time. We did manage to bring it back down to the mid 7s later on in mile 1. Cathy passed up and pointed up ahead to Cindy and Jan and told us that we should try to keep up with Jan who is pretty fast. She zipped up ahead of us and was running close behind them, but I wasn't able to pick up the pace. My legs felt a little tired, but my breathing was pretty good. I wanted to play it safe and save myself for the hill that everyone was talking about at the beginning of mile 3. We were running along side the water for a while until the end of mile 2 and then turn away from it to head up that dreaded hill. At this point George was along side me and Kellie was a little behind, but George told me to go for it. I tried to take the hill strong to see if I could make up any distance between Cindy, Jan and Cathy. Once at the top of the hill I knew that the only one I might be able to catch was Cathy, but I wasn't sure of that either. At the last turn for the homestretch Marty was there with some kids cheering for us. He specifically told them to cheer for Kate and that I'm the local race photographer when I'm out with injuries. I looked up ahead to see two young boys and then Cathy. I pushed the pace to get to the kids and told them not to let me beat them and sure enough they sprinted like a crazy and blew by me and Cathy. I know had one last chance to see if I could catch her too. I pushed it as hard as I could and passed her with about 3 strides to go for the finish. I did apologize, but she seemed to be happy for me. George and Kellie finished pretty close behind me.

We all hung out and chatted for a while afterwards. Upon checking the results I saw that Cindy and I were going to place in our division and thought that Cathy would too. I would have felt bad if my sprint at the end would knock her out. Luckily, it worked out so that all three of us placed and got trophies. Jan also placed first in her division.

My splits:
Mile 1: 7:37
Mile 2: 7:54
Mile 3: 7:47

Final .11: :35 (5:27 pace)
Total: 23:53
Pace: 7:41
3.11 miles

Run for the Rock Race Results

Brian