Wednesday, April 26, 2006

WTAC Clamdigger 5 Mile

Sunday morning I headed to Misquamicut beach in Westerly Rhode Island for the Clamdigger 5 mile road race. I was happy to see the rain stop at the Connecticut border, but not thrilled with the wind - which I heard one person estimate was gusting to 40 mph. The first leg of the race was right into it, and my split showed a 7:26 pace. The second leg I ran with a high school kid named John who helped me pull off a 7:01 pace over the final 2.5 miles. My GPS had our time at 36:45 and an average pace of 7:13, which I think is very good considering the conditions. Official times are poster here. The GPS tracked the distance to be 5.1 miles, while the race is listed as only 5, so there is a difference in the pace I'm reporting here (7:13) and the pace on the website listed (7:21) - since the GPS says I'm faster, I'll stick with it (and to keep consistency with all my training runs, etc...). Anyway, the time was good for 8th out of 18 male racers in the 30-39 age group and 30th out of 108 overall. Although the field was small, the times were pretty competitive, as the top 4 in that age group all clocked under 6:20 paces - a full 5 minutes faster than me over the entire course. I guess I have some improving to do before I get that fast.

Fourth set of hills yesterday. I went out again with the group from work and it felt pretty good: I had an average pace of 7:20 - but the workouts are gradually getting more difficult. I do think these helped during the race. I'll do another 6 miles either tomorrow or Friday, then do a 4M, hills, and 6M next week in preperation for the May 6th L&M run (3.5 miles). Hopefully the weather is such that I can do that Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to give me a day-off prior to the race.

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