More whine please

I have a love/hate relationship with the Bastille Day 4 Miler, this year held on July 14. I like the theme, the distance is approachable even for someone slow like me, and the surface is pretty good for running (Crescent Trail). But is is run in the evening during July in Dc so it's always warm. It wasn't unbearable this evening but it was still hot.

The race is very popular and there were 98 finishers. The path is only wide enough for 2 people side by side so you can imagine how croded it is at the start of the race. The race Director did a good job of not having us line up until just before the start of the race but it was still enough time to clog the path and cause a biker to get irate. Just chill dude! Anyway, I hung back even more than usual given the crowd. It helped that it was a chip race so I knew the clock wouldnt really start until I crossed over the mats.

I passed Ric Franke after about 5 minutes. Walt Washburn was behind me at the start. The first mile has a pretty significant uphill climb towards Bethesda. I completed the first mile in 10:51 but I did need 2 brief walk breaks to get there. I obviously spent a little too much time walking around the top of the hill because even with a long run down the hill I finished the second mile in 24:25. I was slowing down badly. My heart rate peaked at 149 coming DOWN the hill. It was going to be a long 2 miles. I did pass another runner during the downhill though, a gentleman by the name of Daniel Klimow. I managed to keep him behind me for the rest of the race.

As I approached the start finish line at 2.4 miles, many finishers were already cooling down. The DC Roadrunners are just starting to use this new chip system and runners have to get used to staying away from the mats after they finish their run. Unfortunately, some of thenm got in front of me as I approached the mats. Ed Grant yelled at us to stay away from the mats. But I was just following the runners in front of me. I understand he probably didnt realize that I was only a little more than halfway through but geez, I wish he would take a chill pill. He's such an angry guy.

My anger at Ed got me through the next mile or so as I really don't remember much about it. What I do remember is that there were 2 women (Nicole Gulatz and Maureen McKenna) about a minute in front of me for most of that last mile. I repeatedly tried to make up ground on them during that last mile but I couldn't sustain the push and would have to walk. I finished just over a minute behind both of them with a time of 48:54. I had been hoping for something closer to 44 minutes so I missed that by a lot but I did soundly beat my time from the 4 miler held just 10 days before this race so I was pleased about that. My heart stats were

Average 139bpm
Max heart rate 152bpm