BostonBound59

On Sunday we headed out to the seacoast along with 800 others for the Half at the Hamptons, another prep race on the road to Boston. Similar to Derry three weeks ago, we lucked out with great weather (for February) with temps at race time in the low 30’s with only occasional gusts. It was not lost on me as we stepped to the line that just 6 weeks prior we were running on snow covered roads in brutal sub-zero temperatures a few miles south on Salisbury Beach for their Annual New Year’s Day race so Sunday’s conditions were summer like by comparison. I was looking forward to running a course a little flatter than Derry so I could try to maintain a steady pace as long as possible. Most of our weekend long training runs have been on mega-hilly up and down courses which beat you up and make you wonder what kind of steady pace you can truly hold under race conditions. Cathy, Rick Collopy and I warmed up close to a ½ hour prior to the race and as usual I fiddled around (unsuccessfully) trying to get out of my running pants and once again nearly missed the gun.

My goal was to run a 7 minute pace and the first three miles were a bit too fast (6:37, 6:53, 6:48) and my group hit the 5k mark in 21:05. The course then meandered into residential areas of Hampton that acted as a buffer from the wind gusts off the ocean so we were able to keep it under 7 minutes and passed the 10k mark in 42:37. I’m sure the 7th mile marker was off as that split was 6:17. At about this point one of my Flash Youth runners Cam Dumont and his family were out on the course cheering us on and this helped me greatly. Cam is a talented runner from Hampton Academy and one of the hardest workers on my team and his younger brother Jacob ran on our boys bantam team. As we reached the 9-10 mile point I could sense we were headed back toward the ocean as the gusts picked up and we took a sharp left and headed northerly up Willow Ave. and then swung a sharp right onto Ocean Boulevard and suddenly the Atlantic was staring us square in the face with some incredible views—which somehow is harder to appreciate after 10 miles of running. The wind really picked up at this point as the last 3 miles down Ocean Boulevard were a pretty straight shot right back into center of Hampton Beach. This stretch was mentally difficult for me but I kept reminding myself—this was a beer sponsored race (Harpoon) so I had a reason to live. My last 3 miles were difficult: 7:06, 7:02 and 6:22 (the cone placement for this mile was definitely short) and I finished in 1:30:08. Cathy was 1:28:22 and was 3rd overall woman and though I was dusted again I could actually see her most of the race (sort of like a mirage). It was a great showing for the Gate City Striders: thirteen year old Cassie Wright 1st Woman’s 19 & Under (1:42)--her dad Mike was 4th in his age group at 1:23, Karen Long 1st Woman 40-44 (1:31), Steve Piper 3rd Men’s 50-54 (1:32), Aileen Kenney 1st Womans 60-64 (2:00), Terry Kenny 3rd Men's 60-64 (2:09), Shu Minami 1st Mens 70-74 (1:55). We also had Flash Coach Rick Collopy finish in 1:36, and Coach Maryanne Dempsey 1:57 as well as Flash alumnus Alex Brown run 1:21 in winning the 20-24 year old men’s age group. I hope I didn’t miss anyone. Results: http://www.coolrunning.com/results/09/nh/Feb15_Halfat_set1.shtml