This race is now in its second year. Initially scheduled as a Memorial Day race in 2020, the race was moved to November and renamed because of COVID.
Arsenal Events hosts this race which starts on River Road and finishes in Pratt Park.
This race is one of the few that closes River Road.
Last year, I finished second in the Men’s 60 to 69-year-old age group. A couple of days ago, I looked at the other competitors in my age group. There were two who could definitely beat me, one would be a challenge to beat and a handful that I should finish before.
With JFK next weekend, I decided that I needed to run at an easy pace. If, in the last stretch, I could beat one of those three, then I would push.
Last night, I went to the UVA versus Norte Dame football game and left at halftime. I’m working on changing my sleep pattern to wake up at 4 am next Saturday. This morning, I got up at 5:30 am with only 5 hours of sleep. After the initial jolt of the alarm clock, my resting heart rate was in the low 50s.
Pratt Park is less than a half-mile from my house. I decided to leave just after 8 am for the 8:30 start time and warm up on my way. The temperature at 8 am was 29 degrees with a 29-degree dew point. Yes, that is 100% humidity.
It was partly cloudy with no wind, and I expected the temperature to rise to about 40 degrees before finishing my race. BTW, this is the same forecast for next week’s start in Boonsboro.
Today was a day for shorts over compression shorts, singlet over a long-sleeved Coolmax shirt, knit hat, gloves, neck gaiter, and Saucony Endorphin Speed 2 shoes. While warming up, I wore an extra long-sleeved overshirt.
My warm-up was three intervals of walk 2 minutes, run 6 minutes, and then I stood on the hill overlooking the start line. Once I heard the “let’s line up” command, I removed my overshirt, tied it around my waist, and moved down onto River Road. I saw Jack Morrison had registered late. So, there would be no chance to finish in the top three, and I decided not to push.
The course ran the entire length of River Road twice before heading into Pratt Park on the southeastern end of the Belmont to almost Ferry Farm Trail. On the BFF, we ran through Pratt Park and Brooks Park, then down the switchbacks to River Road. Another full length of River Road got us back on the BFF and up the hill to the finish near the playground. There are some ups with this course but also a lot of nice flat sections.
I ran fairly even splits 10:04, 10:13, 10:17, 9:56, 10:06, 9:51 and 2:12 for a finish time of 1:02:43. That’s a 10:06 minute per mile pace for a negative split run. I finished 32nd overall, 18th male, and fifth of seven runners in my age group. Of the 27 male finishers, seven (>25%) were older than 60.
I may need to figure out how to keep my hands warm. Recently, I bought some Mizuno Breath Thermo gloves, thinking my last pair had lost some of their warming properties. My hands were colder than they should have been until about 4 miles into the race.
I tried not to trash my legs, but I did run hard for about 2 minutes in the sixth mile. On my cool-down run home, my right IT band started giving me issues. We’ll have to stretch it a little more this coming week.