Saunders at Rye Harbor 10k

On Thursday August 19th Heather and I went up to Rye, NH for the Saunders at Rye Harbor 10k. Last year I ran Beach to Beacon 10k in 33:12 and then Saunders 10k (19 days later) in 32:46. I was 26 seconds quicker over the Saunders course, which I think is a faster course than the Beach to Beacon course. This year I ran 32:33 (a PR) at Beach to Beacon and now, 12 days later found myself again at the Saunders road race. Part of me was excited thinking that I had another shot at running a fast 10k, part of me was also thinking that my lack of running much over the last 5 weeks was going to catch up to me sooner or later. After we picked up our numbers Heather and I ran into Jim Johnson and soon the three of us headed out over the last part of the course for a warm up. After a quick change into racing gear we were all headed over to the starting line.

At the starting line I also noticed a couple other fast guys in John Mentzer (last years champion) and Tim Rider. Soon we were all off and running. Right off the start it was Jim, John and myself went to the front followed by a few other guys. By the time we hit the mile (5:08) it was just the three of us together. At this point the course is mostly flat with some very slight ups here and there, but nothing I would call a hill. As we approached the 2nd mile mark I was starting to realize that I was not having a good day, the legs were gone, and I was feeling slow and sluggish. Jim and John started to pull away and I soon hit the 2nd mile mark about 10 seconds back of them in 5:17 (10:25 total). At this point I knew I was not going to be able to run with Jim and John today, but I still figured I could grind out a decent time. I pushed the third and hardest mile of this course the best I could and could only manage a 5:34 mile (15:58 total). At this point I was told by a spectator that there was no one behind me, so I figured I must have had a pretty good lead over 4th place. At this point Jim and John had put a lot of distance on me and it looked like they had a great race going. The next three miles of running were pretty uneventful, I was running by myself I was hurting and just trying to finish the race up and stay in third place. The last three miles are downhill to flat and I figured I should be able to hang onto third place as long as nothing crazy happened. I managed to run 5:31 (21:29 total), 5:29 (26:58 total), and 5:35 (32:33 total) for miles 4, 5, and 6 respectively. I did take a peek back going around the corner to the finish and saw nobody, so I knew I was good for 3rd place. I finished up the last 0.2 in 1:10 for a total time of 33:43 good for third place.

I was not very happy with this result, but I kind of expected things to fall apart soon since I have been running little mileage over the last 5 weeks. This will serve as a nice little kick in the rear, if I want to race with those top guys I need to get out there and put in the work. Heather finished up her race strong in 39:27 good for 2nd place. After the awards it was off to the Portsmouth Brewery for some much needed diner and drinks.

Results

Jim and I enjoying a cold one after the race.