Minuteman Classic 5 miler

My parents were in town for 16 hours or so during the July 4th holiday. They flew in to New Jersey for a conference a few days early so decided to rent a car and come visit (and take a few suitcases full of my stuff back to Chicago to help me move). Anyway, since they had a car, I decided to take full advantage and make them drive me to a race.

We drove up to Concord, MA for the Minuteman Classic 5 Miler. The race was no where to be found on Cool Running's race calendar. Emily told me about it on Tuesday, so I used my best google searching skills to track it down.

We got a little lost getting there and arrived a bit late, so I didn't get to warm up much. I saw Katie Fobert at the start line -- which was great! Always nice to see a friendly face. The race started with the firing of a musket -- I guess it's tradition for this 4th of July race. And we were off. I went out at a steady pace and did not expect to be the lead woman --- but I was. There were tons of men ahead of me though. The first mile must have been short because my watch read 5:47 and I think we ran closer to 6:05 or 6:06. Anyway, I ran with a group of middle aged men and we kept trading spots and racing around the turns for a few miles. I passed a bunch of people who went out too hard and died half-way through. My three mile split was 18:14, so I felt good. The next two miles were tough -- at this point I was racing more or less by myself and there were some small rolling inclines and declines and I was getting tired and hot.

Rounding the last few turns toward the finish, I was struggling to maintain pace, much less surge and push hard to finish. I really have no kick! Anyway, I won the race and PRed for the distance but didn't run quite as well as I would have liked to. No worries. It was still a fun way to spend the morning of the 4th of July, and I was thrilled that my parents were around to drive me to and from the race. Katie Fobert also did well (but I don't know her place yet) and we cool down together through the gorgeous tree-lined roads of Concord.

When I got home, I checked my email and read about Gretchen's great 10K race and was floored! At that point I basically forgot that I had raced and was just so happy and excited for Gretchen. She is the star of the 4th of July!

*megha