New England Running Company 10 Mile Road Race

That was the wettest race I've run so far.

Fortunately the rain let up before the start, so I could get the warmup in and the pre-race standing around without getting soaked. But it wasn't soon after the start that it simply poured, and it stayed that way most of the race. By midway I wasn't bothering running around the puddles anymore.

I started with Marianne and a friend of hers, and we took the first three miles at an 8 minute mile pace. That really helped me, as I never start races that quickly and it felt good. Marianne moved ahead after 3 miles and later finished about a minute ahead of me.

My final result was 1:16:52, which was close to a 10 minute improvement over the 1:26 I did at Lazy Lobster about this time last year, and represents a 7:41 mile pace. It was a lot of fun and a very well organized race.

Beverly 10 miler pre-game

Tomorrow morning I'm running a 10 mile race in Beverly, probably in the rain, and hopefully not in a thunderstorm.

My PR for 10 miles is 1:26, done last June. That's an 8:40 mile pace. Given that I did a 7:57 pace for the Half Marathon in Binghamton in May, I certainly hope I can PR the 10 miles. I'll be happy if I can at least match the 7:57 pace I did in Binghamton.

5k PR

My knees felt good last night, so I went for it at the weekly Danvers 5K and tried for my first sub 22 5K (well, at least since I was a young man!) I made it and set a PR with a 21:48 finish. But I still couldn't catch Ethan who also lowered his time with a 21:33. A good night followed up with the usual good time at Osborn Tavern.