Lone Gull, etc.

Pardon my current obsession with LCD Sounsdsystem...

But if you need something to listen to while you read this overdue post, please enjoy.

Since last writing, Heather and I traveled to nearby Gloucester, MA for the Lone Gull 10k. We were both poised to improve on road PR's of 32:21 (last year's Lone Gull) and 39:25 (at last year's Tufts 10k). With the deep field for the USATF-NE Grand Prix Championship, there was bound to be plenty of company the whole way out and back on the beautiful Back Shore.

CMS men's team looked good with Nate Jenkins and Dan Vassallo both in attendance. Scott Leslie, who finished ahead of me here last year also made the trip. I had just edged him at the 15k, but also know he is in the middle of some high mileage marathon training and I am not.

IT was a picture perfect day

Thanks to Scott Mason, for capturing the beauty of the day behind Alex Hall and me dueling in the last mile!

Alex and I talked at the start: he had taken Coach Scott McGrath's advice to lower his 33:00 goal and wanted to see how 5:10's felt. I hoped that would be about where I was, so I offered to set the pace early on. After coming through the mile in 4:58, I felt like I had done a poor job of setting Alex up for success, and wondered if I would see him again.

Things got a little more realistic the rest of the way, with mile 2 passing in 10:12 (5:14); mile 3 in 15:18 (5:06); 5k in 15:53 (sub-32:00 pace); mile 4 out of the neighborhood is the slowest and that was a 5:21, which put me at 20:39 for 4. Even with people to chase the last two miles-plus, it was tough to hold onto 5:10 pace with the shifting wind in our face and across the road.

To my surprise, Alex came by me around mile 5 as I was chasing a couple other guys. He gave me a thumbs-up, which I (it turns out correctly) assumed meant he was feeling good. I tried to hang with him, and in the picture above (1/2 mile to go?) I was just making a move to get around him. I was afraid I might have squeezed him entirely out of the shot, but Scott Mason knows what he's doing with the camera.

Mile 5 was 25:50 (5:11); mile 6 was 31:06 (5:16) and I hung on to finish in 32:10 with a new road PR by 11 seconds. At age 38 (I turned in late August), there was noone older ahead of me in the results, although Greg Putnam in 32:38 at age 44 (CMS 5th man) was certainly more impressive. Mike Galoob was first master in 32:24. And, most notably, Pete Hammer, at 48 years young in 32:39!

It was a good day to run fast, and Heather got in on the act, too, knocking nearly a minute off her 10k best, with a 38:31! We both took 4th in age group awards and RD Len Femino was kind enough to go that deep with prizes, so we got to hear our names called and leave with some parting gifts.

70 miles the week after lone gull, with no run on Saturday; I had an all-day ropes course training for a class I'm teaching this fall.

Last week only mustered 48 in 6 days leading up to our home XC meet.

Gonna go dance on some wet rocks somewhere nearby...