Williams Alumni Race

Last weekend, the family embarked on our first road trip since the arrival of kid #2 back in early September. We headed west, to the Berkshires, for the Williams College Alumni XC race. The race is held on the trails and fields of Mt. Greylock High School, Williams' home course since my freshman year (1999). The course has changed several times since my days to make it more spectator friendly (more fields, fewer trails) and championship ready (wide, well-maintained trails, and good drainage).

View of Mt. Greylock from the XC course.

This would be my seventh time running the race since graduating. I've quickly become "the old guy" among the alums who show up. In fact, I think I might have been the oldest alum in this year's race by four years. This has not been good for my self-esteem.

I had hoped to take a quick tour of the trails during my warm-up, but Katie and I haven't yet adjusted our race day routine to handle the needs of two kids, so I found myself with only five minutes to race time when I was finally able to relieve myself of Seb.

Funny side story: As I was jogging through the high school gym, trying to find Katie so I could hand off Seb and get to the starting line, I wasn't paying attention to where Seb actually was. When I finally found Katie on the other side of the gym, she was wearing a worried look. "Where is Seb??" she asked. "Right behind me...," I said, turning around and slowly realizing that he was not. Then from amid a throng of college kids 50 yards away comes Seb, looking all around and saying, "DAAADDDDYYY. Where ARE YOU??" "See, right behind me," I said as I ran outside and away from trouble.

I managed to get in a solid 4-5 minute warmup behind the starting line as the race official gave the instructions. Before I knew it, the gun went off.

The meet is a very low key invitational, attended by a few lower-tier DIII schools. Williams, always strong (ranked 3rd nationally in DIII this year), runs its sub-sub varsity guys at the meet (#13+ on the depth chart) in order to rest its other guys for the upcoming championship season. This all adds up to a pretty noncompetitive field, allowing us old guys to feel like we're right in the mix.

I wasn't sure what kind of shape I was in coming into this race, having not raced since August thanks to a persistent knee injury (along with a baby and a bout of Lyme disease). My plan was to go out in ~5:30 for the first mile and see what happened from here. Well, I did just that, hitting mile 1 in 5:32 and feeling OK. The second mile is a tough one, winding through a moderate trail section and then culminating with a steep, long hill. I got passed by big group of guys going up the hill. I thought to myself that I'd reel them in later, but that never happened. I crested the hill feeling fatigued and worried about how much I had left in the tank. This is also the spot where I fell and hurt my knee during a race early in my senior year, causing me to miss almost the entire season. Good memories...

1200 to go. If there was an arrow labeled with a shorter distance, I'd have taken it.

Mile two was 5:51 (and it felt like it). I tried to gain some momentum heading down the other side of the hill but was pretty much just maintaining my position at this point. We looped through the main field by the school and headed back into the woods to do the first half of mile 2 in reverse. I caught a couple of guys in the woods but had nothing left to build into a final kick. I managed to turn on the jets for the final straightaway, passing the Williams assistant coach, and finishing in 17:44 for 29th place and the 8th alum. I was not very pleased with the results, as I ran 35 seconds slower than last year's disappointing race.

	2013	2014	Difference
Mile 1	5:17	5:32	+0:15
Mile 2	5:53	5:51	-0:02
Mile 3	5:26	5:50	+0:24
Last 0.1	0:32	0:30	-0:02

Went out more conservatively this year, which seems to have helped in Mile 2, but the third mile was a disaster.

I had a nice cool down and caught up with a couple of the younger alums before heading into the gym for a typical Williams post-race spread: a gallon jug of peanut butter without any bread, empty plates that had once held treats, and a few scraps of apple cider donuts.

A little post-race analysis brightened my spirits a bit. It seems that all of the guys ahead of me who'd also run the year before had finished 20-40 seconds slower this time. Could we all be in worse shape? That certainly played a role in my case. But I'm also wondering if the rain earlier in the week had softened the ground enough to slow everyone down. There were no puddles or muddy spots, so I hadn't considered that possibility during the race, but it seems like a reasonable theory.

Name	2013	2014	"Unimprovement"
Kamm	15:43	16:22	0:39
Abasolo	16:24	16:45	0:21
Raduazo	16:40	17:06	0:26
Hyland	16:42	17:25	0:43
Rodilitz	16:47	17:06	0:19
Garvin	17:10	17:44	0:34

The top guy here recently ran a 1:05 half marathon. No chance I'd be hanging near him.

I also discovered that the Williams assistant I'd out-kicked was a legendary DIII runner from North Central College whose career likely hit a new low the moment I went by him. I would have been lucky to have finished within two minutes of him back in his prime.

My Williams Alumni Race History
2014 - 17:44 - 29th (8th alum)
2013 - 17:09 - 12th (8th alum)
2012 - At a wedding
2011 - In California
2010 - Injured
2009 - 17:52 - 11th
2008 - Racing a duathlon
2007 - 26:40 - jogged/injured
2006 - 18:29 - 26th (2nd alum), muddy & slippery
2005 - 16:58 - 5th (1st alum)
2004 - 17:25 - 9th (1st alum)

Some shots of the Williams XC course from a "few" years ago...

1999 Little 3 meet

      

2002 Purple Valley Classic (a few miles before the fall)

2002 ECAC championships (first race back from knee injury)