Ultimate Runner, Ultimate Consistency

Near the finish of the 5k...painful.

Wednesday night was our annual Ultimate Runner night at track (results). Our club puts on a age and gender graded competition during the break between spring and fall outdoor track sessions. The competition consists of running a 400m, 800m, 1 mile and 5k race all in one night. On paper it seems kind of fun, in reality it's much harder than it looks. I wrote about Ultimate Runner in more detail last year if you're interested
Once again temps were in the low 90's and sunny (sound familiar?). Have I mentioned this is my least favorite weather to run in? Probably. Anyways, nothing outstanding to write about this year. I took it easy (relatively speaking) in the shorter events, hoping to have a decent 5k. Long story short, I got a stomach cramp shortly after the 1st mile in the 5k and really struggled just to finish. Not sure if it was heat related or not. Legs were fine.

So, not a great night but I'm glad I did it anyways. Lots of fast masters out there! I thought the interesting part was comparing my times from last year to this year. Almost scary consistent, which at my age I should be grateful for!

	2009	2010
	Actual	Actual
400m	01:07	01:08
800m	02:31	02:32
1M	05:34	05:27
5k	19:06	19:08
	2009	2010
	Age Graded	Age Graded
400m	01:00	01:00
800m	02:16	02:16
1M	05:05	04:57
5k	17:44	17:37

Last year I finished 5th overall, this year I finished 4th. In three more years I should win this thing!

Photo credit - Jim Rhoades from Coolrunning

All quiet in July

I was looking at my 2010 race calender and noticed July was the only month without a race scheduled. Odd I suppose unless you know me just a little. Did I ever mention how much I unlike the heat? The only thing worse is running in the previously mentioned unlikable heat. The summer is my off season.

 On a totally unrelated topic, I've officially gone vain-less. I finally decided the thieves in Concord take enough of my money and I didn't need to give them $40/yr for the privilege of having my vanity plate. For now the blog will remain the same (unless they charge for that too).

Mt Washington Road Race

Walkers to the front, please!

Here's my goal for this report: maintain a positive attitude AND write about my experience. Wow, this is going to be tough...I mean I'm looking forward to the challenge! Ok, here we go!!

My day started early. Technically the previous day ended late. I was so looking forward to this race that I stayed awake as long as possible, giddy with excitement. Seriously, does anyone really need more than 2hrs sleep? There's so much to enjoy out there! My alarm went off at 4am and I was out the door by 4:05. I wanted to make sure I saw the sunrise over the Ossipee Mountains. Thankfully most Dunkin Donuts don't open until 5am so I was able to drive the first hour North without coffee, which as you know only distracts you first thing in the morning. Who wants to struggle with the cup holder so early in the morning, especially when it's dark out?

One Hill Too Many

The 50th Mt Washington Road Race is in the books, and so is my running on this hill. I'm officially done with Mt Washington. Any success I may have had at sea level never materialized on the mountain. I tried. I just never figured out how to run this race well (my definition). I am not disappointed, probably more relieved than anything else. If you're a runner and you live in New England, this is a MUST DO race (once). You'll be glad you did it. It's very satisfying to say you ran up Mt Washington. After that it's up to you if you want to come back year after year. I hope the rest of you have better luck with the lottery than I did over the years. As far as I can remember, I was never actually selected in the lottery. I guess it just proves the point the lottery isn't the only way to get into this race!

Bow Lake Dam 15k

Strafford, NH
Ok, so it wasn't on my racing calender but I do like to compare races from year to year. Until my body says otherwise, I still expect to run faster than the previous year. I ran the Bow Lake Dam 15k last year with Chris Dunn (beating him of course...), and enjoyed the race (especially the beating Chris part).
I had two goals this year: run faster than last year AND run under 1hr.
It's a scenic but challenging course around Bow Lake. The early miles (1-5) are mostly gentle rollers with a couple of short hills mixed in to slow you down a bit. Miles 5-7 are VERY challenging, with a Mt Washington-like climb for 1+ miles. Finally, the last 3 miles are mostly downhill with a long, flat finish to the Bow Lake Dam.

Pack Monadnock 10m Race Photos

On Sunday the Wolfe family was out in force at Pack Monadnock. Five of us were in Miller State Park, Alec was working with the timing company at the summit while the rest of us were manning the water stop at the base. Technically Deb, Jess and Ben were manning the stop, I was supervising, also known as taking pictures. All are veteran water-stoppers so they managed fine without me. We also had the help of 2/3 of the Delahunty triplets (Delahunti's?)

Water Stoppers in Action

At around 10:30am I left my photo duties and moved on to my bonus task for the day: riding my mountain bike to the summit and shuttling the results back down in a timely fashion (pun slightly intended). For some reason many runners thought this was easy and I was lucky. It certainly wasn't fast (I think it took me 10-12 minutes to reach the top). For the record, I did not ride the last 100m. The ride down took 47 seconds (or something like that).

Pack Monadnock Photos

Hmm, I see a trend here...

Pineland Farms 25k Trail Race

Pineland "Farms". Oh, I get it, it's an actual f-a-r-m...

NOTE: Long Post - This was such a great event with so much to talk about.
On Sunday I headed up to New Gloucester, Maine for the Pineland Farms 25k trail race. I have no idea where New Gloucester is, I just followed the GPS. This would be another acidotic RACING team event. Initially we were focused on knocking off the host team of Trail Monster Running. However, my thin skinned and apparently sensitive 'teammates' on my other running club (Gate City Striders) decided to put a team together as well, most likely to challenge aR. Oh what a tangled web we weave...