Charlestown Chili 5K

Without the now-defunct winter trail series, there's a real void in southern RI wintertime racing. Steve Brightman partially filled that void with the resurrection of the Resolution Beach race in early January. It wasn't technically a race (hence no blog post, though you'd be forgiven for thinking that I just hadn't gotten around to it yet), but it temporarily patched that hole in my life. The first real race of the year, however, would be the Charlestown Chili 5K at Ninigret Park.

Ninigret is the largest flat place I can think of in Rhode Island, making it a primo location for a fast 5K. Johnny created, measured, and marked this course, which consists of one big loop bookended by two small almost-loops.

The first thing I noticed upon arriving was that it was awfully breezy out. With the wide open expanses on this course, we'd inevitably have to battle the wind in some sections. During a warm-up with Jonny, we noticed that there were a couple of tough wind-in-the-face stretches. But the wind direction was as favorable as it could have been, given the course layout, so we considered ourselves lucky and promised not to complain about it too much.

Other than Jonny and Jeff, I didn't really know many people at the race, though the turnout was substantial (over 100) for a low-key race in January. Jonny mentioned there were a couple of fast high schoolers there, and it didn't take long to spot at least one of them, as he was shirtless on the starting line, and only a high schooler would do that.

Race start. What is Jonny eyeing?? [All pics from Jana.]

At the start of the race, I went out just ahead of the high school kids and ran fairly evenly with them for the first little loop around the Senior Center. I got some separation on the long bike path straightaway, which was my plan, since I didn't want anyone to draft off me when we turned into the wind directly after the water station at the end of the straightaway. No free rides!

Around some tight turns, I peeked back to get a sense of the gap, which appeared to be growing. The bike path is followed by a lap of the criterium bike track, which seems to take an eternity to circuit. I could see the other runners at a couple points around the track and was feeling like the lead was safe. Still, I wanted a solid time and kept pushing the pace as much as I could.

There's one more tough windy segment from the crit course back to the bike path, and after that it's smooth sailing back toward the finishing loop. Once I hit that loop, I did my best to "run the sh*t out of the tangents," as Jonny had eloquently instructed me to do during our warm-up. My watch was all over the place during the final mile (at one point, it appeared to be adding one second to my pace for every stride I took), so I'd stopped looking at it, and was therefore quite surprised to see the clock in the 15:40s as I stomped toward the finish. The official finishing time was 15:50, which, if true, would be a road 5K PR. More on this in a moment.

Disbelief on my face as I spot the finishing clock. 

A nice shot of the WTAC jersey beside the finishing time. 

Jonny and Jeff both had great races in 4th and 5th, and some new-to-me WTAC members weren't too far behind them, which was cool to see. I got to know them a bit better during the cooldown, as we bonded over removing the miles of red tape that Jonny had painstakingly laid down to mark the course. And was it ever a beautifully marked course!

Oh, that course...  Wheel-measured by the meticulous Jonny multiple times, yet with an elusive tenth of a mile undetected by GPS watches of all makes and models. There are certainly many twists and turns, the kind of which are known to wreak havoc on our not-so-trusty watches. But were there enough to take off a full tenth? Or, maybe I was in shape to run a 15:50. After all, I'd run 16:06 a couple of months ago on a similarly flat and windy course. I am probably fitter now, so it's possible. I want to believe it. I want that 15:50 to be real. But I think I need to do it again before I can accept it. Or maybe I'll just get a pair of Vaporflys of AlphaNext or whatever the next thing in this never-ending series of not-quite-illegal shoes are called. But then again, would running a 15:50 in those be any different than doing it on a short course?