Thursday, August 24, 2017

Lynn Woods Relay

For the second time in two weeks, and only the second time in my life, I headed to Lynn Woods last night for the races. The event this time was the 4 x 2.5 mile relay, a rolling out and back on fire roads, with a short (~.2 mi.) stretch on the more technical "goat path".

I rode over to Lynn with my dad who was making his Lynn Woods debut as well as his club debut, running at age 71 with the North Shore Striders 70+ team. (He ended up running down with the 60+ team.) He was born in Lynn and lived there for the first few years of his life, so it was a homecoming of sorts. For my part, I would be running the first leg for the CMS Men's Masters' team, with 'mates Pawlicki, Taormina and Dao to follow.

I had in mind a goal of 15:00 which would translate to 6:00/mi. pace for the 2.5 mile course. Based on my run at the Woods last week, where I had a hard time staying under 7:00/mi., I knew the pace would depend on the course we took. Some of the single-track we ran last week was beyond my ability to sustain 6-minute miles on.

We arrived a little after 5:00 pm, for the 6:00 start. I saw Jim and Nakri, got my number and nice technical race T, and warmed up with my dad on the fire road. The course definitely had some climbs, but the fire road is wide and pretty smooth, so I felt like 15-flat was feasible, as long as I didn't lose too much time on the goat path.

I also was surprised to see Greg Krathwohl, a former Ipswich HS runner who I coached in high school, who showed up with his dad, Eric, and would be running the opening leg in his dad's place for Team Gloucester. Greg was a 4:24 miler in high school who ended up a dIII all-american in XC at Middlebury his senior year (2014). Since then, he's kept running with a couple sub-1:10's at Mt. Washington, a 2nd place finish at the Stonecat 50-miler last fall and a Boston Marathon this past April.

I lined up in the second row of runners at the start, a few spots away from Greg and double d, who got a brief introduction as the relay course record holder (12:05 in 1991). (Last night there was only one person that ran under 13:00, only 3 under 14:00, and Dave ran the 14th-fastest split of the night, 26 years later.)

We started a couple minutes past 6, the first leg runners for 88 relay teams, men and women, all ages, all levels of competitive interest. The first 100m or maybe less was on the pavement, and then we were onto the fireroad and the first of a series of climbs in the first half mile. I quickly settled in to the top ten, with dd nearby and a young chelsea high runner (Jose LeClerc) who was one spot ahead of me last week. Greg was sharing the lead with a young kid I didn't recognize, and then Jonah Hulbert (Wicked) and Mark Dawson (running all four legs himself) were close behind them.

Before we got to the mile (5:50 according to the Garmin), I was settled into fifth. I could hear footsteps on the goat path (Jose or Dave), and could see Mark. When we came back out of the singletrack, I made as much of a push as I could to try to close on Mark. I could see that Jonah had put a little distance between himself and Mark, so I thought maybe I could overtake him on the downhills. The descents test my knee more than anything else, so I was making an effort, trying to be smart, and still not hyper-confident in my fitness.

As I pulled up alongside Mark just after two miles (11:47), he urged me to go by (a la JJ Yankee Homecoming 10-Mile '09), but I was going as fast as I could, so I stayed with him into the finish in 14:34. At the chute, he did a button hook and headed right back out, and there was some mild colliding and 'whoopsie-ing' while we got untangled. Turned out, he was running the first two legs (and I later discovered he ran all four), so that was probably why he encouraged me to go by. (We ended up talking after the whole thing was done and clearing it all up.)

Dave came in right behind him, and the two CMS teams were in good position. After strong legs from Jim (15:07) and Nick (15:04), Nakri closed it out in 15:47 and the team held on for 2nd overall in 1:00:32. Meanwhile, the seniors led by Dave in 14:44 were 5th overall, 1st 50+ and set a new senior course record of 1:03:47.

Full results here.


Everyone but DD: Martin, Nick, Nakri, Jim, Me, Chris Smith, Paul

Cooled down around Lynn Woods with Philip Goudie and Eric and Greg Krathwohl. Stopped at Nick's Roast Beef in Beverly on the way home with my dad for a super beef with cheese, sauce and mayo.


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