Brighton Mass 5k

Brighton, MA

I made the trek down to Brighton on Saturday to get out and to run something at race pace. This was a great community event put on by the Samaritans of Greater Boston to support their suicide prevention programs.

This was a USATF certified course that started at Artesani Park and ran along the Charles River. I finished the course with a time of 17:54 which wasn’t bad and good enough to place me 4th overall. Like I said, I just wanted to get out and run something at a fast pace.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be making the trek up to Philly to run the Philadelphia Marathon in November. If I end up racing, it’ll be my 1st marathon ever so I’ll get to test that out. It’s also a qualifier for Boston next spring which is the whole reason I’d run it in the 1st place. We’ll see how things pan out over the next couple of weeks.

Ollie 5 Mile Championship

Boston, MA

After some great runs up in Maine last weekend and a powerful speed workout on the track Wed, I went into my 1st road race out here on the East Coast pretty well prepared. The course itself was on the South Boston Waterfront and offered spectacular views as we ran along the coast looking out over Pleasure Bay. The entire course was flat with exception to one hill that was more of a knoll in comparison to anything back West.

I think this was the 1st year that the race had become a USATF sanctioned event meaning that there was some great top-level competition in a near-world-class venue. It was really interesting because the pro athletes and the “average joe’s” (aka me), all started at once off the same starting line. I think it goes without saying, 3-time Boston Marthon Champion Uta Pippig kicked my ass!

I went into the race with the goal of running sub-30 min for the 5 mile course. I think I got just a little too excited starting off the same line with all of the pro athletes and blazed my 1st mile in 5:24. A little too fast and it actually cost me in the long run. Had I gone out slower I could have run negative splits and would have faired a lot better. In the end though, I clocked a 29:35 exceeding my goal and had a blast running my 1st race here in Beantown!