Ollie 5 Mile

Or 4.91 miles.  Apparently something went wrong, the official results are recording it as 4.91 miles due to "missed turnaround", whatever that means.  You would think that the USATF-NE 5 mile championship race would have its act together.  I blame the rain.

Speaking of rain...

It was a cold and rainy day.  Seriously, it was freakin' pouring out.  All of South Boston was covered by inches of water.  Naturally with the conditions the way they were we parked about three blocks from the Bank of America Pavilion and walked, in the pouring rain, over and grabbed our numbers and gear.  Then we had to walk back to get ready.  The gigantic lighting and thunder crash half-way back was a total treat.  So as you can imagine we were insanely soaked by this point.  I did find out that my wind pants are in fact, not even remotely waterproof.  At least I will take that knowledge with me.

Time comes to line up for the race.  A little rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner and we are off, apparently.  I never heard a gun go off so I was kind of just swept along with the crowd.  No worries; being that the weather sucked and I was a tad hung over (another good tip is to never go drinking until 1:30AM the night before a race) I figured I would just tuck into a comfortable pace and stick with it.  No need to push it too much.  With that in mind I settled into a 6:30 pace and enjoyed the race.

Luckily the rain had abated and was more of a mist now so it actually ended up being a pretty decent day for a run.  Up the first hill and down to the waterfront we went.  Suddenly the lead runners started passing me on the other side of the road on their way back after the turnaround.  Damn they were fast.  These guys make it look effortless.  The turnaround was just up ahead when Don passed me by on his way back.  Take the turn and now I got to see the rest of the crew as we passed.

Hit the three mile marker still feeling good.  Wait, that mile marker came up really quick.  A look at the GPS confirmed my feeling, it read 2.8 miles.  Hmm, interesting but no worries.  I kept my pace pretty consistent and soon was hitting the 4 mile marker underneath which a few people were "stoopin' it" and letting us all know that yes, this was mile 4.  Except that it wasn't.  Again my GPS read around 3.8 miles.  Intellectually intriguing but I still had a mile to go so I didn't really care all that much.

Picked up the pace for the last mile but didn't kill myself.  I was happy with my 32:19 (32:24 official) time and the fact that I picked up a point on El Presidente which I thought would put me one point out of the lead but a quick check of the standings shows that there is a tie for the lead!  Woo hoo.  Guess I shouldn't have blown off the James Joyce Rambler after all.

After the race it was off to the Pavilion to sample the free Harpoon ale and stand around in the cold rain.  So smart of me to leave all of my clothes in the car.  Hypothermia never felt so good.  The beer really was good though.

My 32:34 finish meant a 6:36 pace which I was happy with.  But the field in this race was so strong that I came in 199th!  Damn, that is a crazy field.  Always fun to race with talent like that.  But next time it's raining like that I'm bringing a jacket for afterwards.  Not my smartest moment.