Saunders at Rye Harbor 10k

Thursday I headed up to Rye NH for the Saunders at Rye Harbor 10K (Part of the Seacoast Road Race Series). The drive up was real nice as the last few miles are right along the coast. It really is a very beautiful area. Parking for the race was a bit tough as it was all on street parking, but I got there early enough to get a spot about a third of a mile from the start finish area. As I walked over to the registration area and met up with some friends and teammates that were running. After grabbing my number and stuff I went out for a warm up with Jim Johnson, Seth Williams, Pat Ard, Kevin Alliette and Dave Quintal. After changing into racing gear it was off to the starting line. At the starting line I ran into a couple other Whirlaway runners in Chris Hamel and Dan Princic. So the Whirlaway had a very nice team there with Pat, Seth, Chris, Dan and myself. A couple of other fast faces at the starting line included Sam Wood and John Mentzer, who has been tearing it up lately.

The race went off and a large pack of about 9-10 guys together through about the mile, which went by in 5:07. This was the last split I got till the 1 mile to go split, yes I forgot my watch. The group was being led by John, Jim, and Kevin. Over the next mile, which is a very slight up hill, the lead group was down to John, Jim, Kevin, Dan, and myself. This group stayed together till about the 3 mile mark, which is right after a short up hill, It was here that some moves were made. John and Dan went to the front followed by Jim and Kevin, I started to go out the back door a bit. I did not feel bad, but I was not able to cover the moves and stay in contact. From here on out the course is down hill to flat, making for a very fast second half of the course. From my position in 5th place I watched the race unfold in front of me. Over the next 2 miles John continued to lead and dictate the pace, Dan fell off the lead and Kevin went after John with Jim chasing not to far behind. I was in chase mode, but I did not feel like I was making up much ground. Turning into the last mile plus of the race along the ocean, I could see that I was catching up to Dan, John was still in first followed closely by Kevin, with Jim in 3rd a ways back then Dan in 4th and myself in 5th. I went by the 1 mile to go (5.2 miles into the race) split in 27:30. It was only at this point that I realized I was actually running a pretty good race and had a good shot at getting under 33 minutes, which I had only done 3 times. I really tried to pick it up and catch up to Dan....but it was not to be. I made up a ton of ground but I ended up finishing 5 seconds in back of Dan in 32:46.

I was pretty happy with this race, 32:46 is my second fastest 10k ever and this result shows that the hard training is starting to payoff. The Whirlaway team also had a very nice showing with Dan Princic in 4th place, Myself in 5th place, Pat Ard in 6th place, Chris Hamel in 7th place, and Seth Williams in 10th place. Also want to give some props to Jim Johnson, the crazy guy runs 2-3 races a week and is still killing it every time out. He had a great race in running 32:20 for 3rd place.

SeaCoast Online Article

Results

Race winner John Mentzer