15th Annual Mews Tavern Gear n' Beer 6.9k Road Race

I think I did everything right for this race.  The race organizers decided to change the course from a 5K (3.1 miles) to a 6.9K (4.287 miles), as they have 69 beers on tap.  Cool...and my decision to grab a map at the packet pickup and run the course the day before the race totally paid off.  I knew exactly where I was on the course, and only looked at my watch a couple of times...

Race morning:  I slept well, and ate a good breakfast, and felt really good.  Not sore, not nervous, just comfortable.  Left the house with plans to arrive early and run a good warmup, and after some traffic re-routing found a great parking spot.  Ran a short warmup, partly with eventual 2nd place finisher Will Sanders.  I couldn't decide what to wear for the race, and ultimately went with shorts, compression shirt and my Li'l Rhody short-sleeved shirt.  Of course the Sun came out and I was too warm...right before the race I ran into my friends Seth and Kenny B., and lined up with them in the "elite" corral...seriously, there were a ton of people hanging back behind the second corral and tons of space up front, they should have just filled in!

Kenny and I in the sparsely populated "elite" corral, where I certainly didn't belong, but what the Hell...

Fred Z., Me & Seth (Photo by Easter Seals of RI)

Mile 1:  I was sure mile #1 would be my slowest mile, and it was at a 7:27.  The race starts with a nice hill, so I expected this.  I held my own on the hill, and slowly increased my pace on the first long straightaway.

Mile 2:  Uneventful but faster at a 7:13.  I was working but not painfully so, and got through the two small residential side streets fine.

Mile 3:  7:05.  Here was where I wanted to pick up the pace, as it's a net downhill from here to the finish.  I left the small neighborhood and turned onto South Road, which is very straight and picked things up, passing a few runners...

Mile 4:  A 6:49.  Again, it really helped having run the course the day before, as I knew exactly what I had ahead of me, and my motivation to maintain and increase the pace was easier to keep.

End of the race:  Just let go with whatever I had in the tank, and finished strong.  I crossed the line at 30:03, but it took me 7 seconds to cross the start line so my net was 29:56, good for 83rd place out of almost 1400 runners.  I had my fastest 1/2 mile, 1K and 2 mile efforts, among others...and I feel like this was my best race yet.  Why?  because I had good prep, I did my homework before the race, and did exactly what I set out to do.  Can't ask for more than that, and I feel like I have a lot more room for improvement.  With sub-20 minute 5k and sub-6 minute mile goals unrealized for 2014, suddenly I feel like they're both within my grasp...

Big shout out to Seth and his janky knee, who teamed up for 13th place today!  Got caught up with Seth and Amanda and some Channel 4 teammates of Seth's, as well as WTAC'er Elise Vonhousen (1st AG award), a Turtle or two, and grabbed a beer for my efforts.

Beer queues!

The crowd, before it got really busy...

"Janky knee and number 3!  A perfect match!"

I'd also like to point out that the weather was 100% perfect for racing, and about 40 degrees warmer than last year.  Couldn't believe it, what a gorgeous day.  Wakefield is such a nice town to run in, and the streets were totally free of traffic, flagged and signed perfectly, and the volunteers were awesome.  Big shout out to Matt Pelletier for his win in 21:08 (holy crap), and Will Sanders for his second place finish only a handful of seconds later, and all the runners who came out to support a great cause.  Yes, the race is a bit pricy, and I'm normally not keen to throw down $ like that for a race, but I like the cause, the race, and the whole package.  Great to see some friends and familiar faces, and get to run on such a nice day, and exceed my own expectations!  Win!