On Saturday July 31st Heather and I went up to Canterbury, NH for the 16th Annual Woodchuck Classic 5k. This was the final race of the CARS series and the goal was just to survive the race and hang onto 2nd place in the series. My legs were still killing me from Tuesday's Yankee Homecoming race, they were very tight and still sore in some spots. So I figured there was no use in trying to kill myself here and end up hurt. As long as I finished this race in a reasonable time I was going to finish 2nd in the series. After a 2.5 mile warm up with Heather is was time to head over to the starting line and get on with the racing. The only problem is the first part (100m or so) of the race drops off a cliff! The downhill is severe and I was really worried about how my legs were going to handle it. The immediate goal off the line would be to survive the downhill then get to the racing. 
Soon we were off and running....well at least everyone else was. I practically walked down the first hill trying to make sure I kept my legs in one piece. By the bottom of the first pitch I was probably in 20th place or so. Once off the steep pitch I started making my way towards the front of the race. The first mile is still mostly downhill so my pace was pretty quick. I passed Scott Clark and Chris Apkarian and soon I was chasing down the leaders. I hit the 1 mile mark in 4:54 despite my very slow start and I was now with Tim Cox, Ryan Kelly, and MacKenzie Killpatrick was in the lead by another 10-15 meters. Soon after this we were on dirt roads making our way up a small hill and around a farm, that's when all of us at the front of the race got a surprise. From around the corner of a barn came a flock of sheep right out in to the middle of the road! MacKenzie out in the lead got by them as most of the sheep made for the side of the road and a few played chicken with him. Some of them were also startled and ran for it, mostly on the sides of the road, but a couple decided playing chicken with us was more fun. Only in New Hampshire! Once past the farm the dirt roads continued. As we were getting close to the 2 mile mark it became apparent that MacKenzie was extending his lead and that Tim, Ryan and I were going to be left to battle it out for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. We passed the 2 mile mark in 10:13 (5:19 mile) and soon the up hill fun began. We were all together at first, but soon Tim went off the back and Ryan and I pressed the pace to make sure we got away from him. Over the next mile of mostly up hill running Ryan and I went back and forth. We made our way towards the finish and up the final incline. At this point my legs were gone and I was just trying to get away from him any way I could. We hit the 3 mile mark together in 15:49 (5:36 mile) and I went for it. The only problem was there was not much of a kick left in me. Ryan covered my move and took off for the finish with a nice burst of speed, there was no chance I was going to catch him now. I hit the finish line in 16:22 (33 second 0.1 mile) good for 3rd place over all. Ryan finished in 16:18 for second, and Tim finished in 16:37 for 4th place. MacKenzie won the race in 16:09.
Overall I was happy with the race considering how bad my legs felt going into it. I kept 2nd place in the CARS series (winning $200) and didn't do any more damage to may already tight and sore legs. Heather ran a great race finishing first in a course record of 19:00. To bad she couldn't find one more second to get under 19 minutes!
The Woodchuck is the best.
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