BostonBound59

Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was in high school and college it seemed like most of the local road races were 5 milers or weird distances like 5.4 or 7.1 (like Falmouth) with a 10k thrown in once in a while. Somewhere in the late 80’s and early/mid 90’s (what I refer to as my lost weekend from real running) the 5k distance crept in and that seems to be standard fare these days. However the 5k distance is difficult for me (and many others in 50+ set) because the pace out of the blocks is so fast that it takes me 3 miles before I feel like my legs are actually moving. I’ve been able to remedy this somewhat thanks to some helpful advice from fellow Strider Steve Moland who told me a few years ago to start warming up at least 30 minutes before the race and keep moving right up until the gun goes off and that seems to have helped. Nevertheless my favorite distance has remained 5 miles.

Today we headed up to Concord for the 42nd Annual Bill Luti 5 Miler which honors the legendary Concord High School track coach and is one of just a small number of 5 mile road races remaining in the area. I also like the 5 mile distance for a variety of reasons not the least of which is my limited math ability where I actually have some idea during the race of my overall approximate finishing time (“ok, I’m running 7 minute pace that means 5 miles x 7 minute pace = 35 minutes”). That is a challenging but do-able math equation for me. For the 5k (3.1 mile) distance I seem to get continually mixed up with that last 1/10th mile (176 yards or 161 meters) that I have to tack on at the end. I’m hopelessly lost when I’m running a 10k (6.2 miles).

Anyway, since the weather forecast looked decent for this morning and against my better judgment since I have a 17 miler on Sunday I decided to sign up late in the week for the race. At the start it was cloudy after raining all night and still quite humid with temps in the 60’s. Cathy and I both got off to a decent start and she was about 50 meters in front of me for the first 1 ½ miles. I ran the early part of the race with former Flash coach Jim Robinson of Derry and his son Mike Robinson and we gradually caught up to Cathy (not easy) and all 4 of us ran as a pack until about the 3 mile mark which passed through the St. Paul’s School grounds where I was able to pull slightly ahead. The course was hillier than I expected and this year had been certified at 5 miles after having been run previously as an 8k. I passed the 5k mark at 19:30 although I was working harder than I had hoped and ran the last two miles in 6:25 and 6:07 and finished in 31:22 for 31st overall and 3rd in my age group. My previous 5 mile best (post high school/college) was 34:26 back in 2000 at Rojacks so this was a PR for me by more than 3 minutes. I’ll pay for it tomorrow. Cathy was first in her age group and 5th overall with a time of 31:54. Also running from our club was Aline and Terry Kenney who finished 2nd and 6th in their age group. Thanks to Aline who picked up my Margarita's Restaurant gift certificate--I left early because I usually never win anything at races unless its a raffle prize.

The pictures above have nothing to do with today’s race. The top photo was taken last weekend at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and shows us looking into a thermal imaging camera on display as we entered the museum. The photo below (with Cathy and Anthony in the foreground) was taken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is a 9 x 7 photorealistic portrait by American artist Chuck Close. Even when I stood no more than one foot from the portrait I couldn't believe it was a painting! I’m not sure why I posted either photo other than I liked them.