Al’s Run
i met up with ryan and jeff over at ryan’s house at 8:30AM. one nice thing about this race is that it starts at 10:30AM which allows folks to sleep in a bit. we headed downtown and ryan found a great parking spot by the starting line. we found other members of the hillrunner.com team and ryan handed them their race packets. with about 30 minutes to race time, we headed out on a short warm up and headed for the bus station for one last pit stop before the race. unfortunately, they were cleaning the bathrooms so we had to improvise, adapt and overcome elsewhere.
ultra-legend roy pIrRUNg had the same plan to use the bathrooms and ended up running along with us back to the starting area. he had just gotten back in the states after participating in the 100K world championships. the US team took bronze and he broke his US record in the road 100K for 55-59 year olds. he also said that kevin setnes ran well.
i ended up about three rows behind the start line right next to ultra-legend dave "double" dehart. the gun sounded and we rolled downhill. i pulled through the first mile in 5:50 and shortly thereafter got to listen to the bagpipers. making a left onto prospect, i could already feel the wind and the lack of turnover in my legs and my pace slowed a bit. we headed down lafayette hill and i did what i could to lean into the hill and let gravity do the work. down on lincoln memorial drive, roy pIrRUNg went past me with another local legend Bob Fitts (who had competed against Steve Prefontaine back in the day).
i did what i could to maintain my pace through the 4th and 5th mile and made the turn for the finish with the clock reading in the high 31’s. i did what i could to get myself across the line in under 32 but the clock doesn’t wait for anyone and i finished in 32:04.
the hillrunner.com team ended up 2nd in the corporate division, losing by only 40 seconds. considering a few weeks ago there wasn’t even a full team, it turned out pretty good. after chatting at the finish for awhile, we headed back up to the starting area for the ride home.