It's the little things.

June 7 - HCS Oakland Hills 2 Miler

I was still hurting abit from the 3 races the day before but I decided to make the trek up to Columbia and get in what I hoped to be an uneventful 2 miler. It actually proved to be anything but.

I almost didn't get there in time. The 14th street bridge was again backed up to Crystal City. I did a little strategic speeding and arrived with about 3 minutes to spare. No stretching for me. I saw Joe Broderick at the start line and he said I might pay him back for yesterday as he was feeling pretty tight. I told him I just arrived so I was pretty tight too. But knowing that he wasn't feeling great helped me a little. My goal at the start line was to beat Joe.

I fell in right behind Joe for the first 1/4 mile. Then we hit a little uphill and also a little congestion. (We were running on a sidewalk). I felt the pace slow so I decided to make an early surge. I put about 20 yards between Joe and I pretty quickly. He never got any closer during the race.

I paid a price for the surge though. My heart rate was 167 after 5 and a half minutes of running. I walked for 1 minute but had to get going again sooner than I would have liked because Joe was gaining on me. I ran hard for another 2 minutes with my heart rate getting up to 163 before having to take another walk break. Then, for the next 3/4 of a mile I tried to run a slower pace that would allow me to keep my heart rate down. I succeeded for the most part, as my heart rate stayed between 140 and 156 during this segment of the race.

It was at this point that Adam McNeil passed me. With about 1/2 mile to go, Adam got in front of me and decided that the only thing that mattered that day was to finish in front of me. He was constantly turning around and checking on where I was. If I took a walk break, he took a walk break. From this I knew that he was tired too. That was all the edge that I needed. I controlled the rest of the race from behind Adam. I wanted to stay within 40 yards of him while resting just enough so that I could give my max effort over the last 250 yards. I figured that I could out kick him given his fatigue. Thats exactly what I did. I took a 10 second walk break with 300 yards to the finish line just to allow my heart to drop from 160 to 154 and then I took off. he didn't see me start to run again until I had already closed half of his lead. He weved back and forth on the path making it difficult to pass but the final 75 yards was on a driveway and I had room to get by him. He gave it a valiant try but he wobbled a little bit with about 20 yards left and I blew by him. The official time showed me crossing in 22:31.4 while Adam finished in 22:31.9. I came in 32nd out of 45 finishers and I was more than 10 minutes behind the 1st place finisher but I felt like a winner. Joe finished in 38th with a time of 23:08.

Oh, did I mention that Adam is about 10 years old? Dori said I really shouldn't mention that but I promised to be truthful in this blog. Yes, I'm excited about barely beating a 10 year old. So what... a win is a win I say. :)