With my legs feeling relatively good, and lots of fall racing options available, I found myself booked for five consecutive weekends of racing, starting with the Masters XC championships on October 17 and finishing with Li'l Rhody on November 14. The 2nd and 3rd of those races were low-key affairs, giving me a chance to relax a bit and use them to work on some race prep and strategy.
The Williams XC Alumni race is typically an annual tradition, though with Covid forcing last year's edition to be canceled and us missing it the previous year, this would be our first trip since 2018. Always a fun time, the event brings back dozens of XC alums (there were nearly 100 this year) from the men's and women's teams for racing and camaraderie. I'm getting so old that only one alum from my era (the assistant coach, my good friend Dusty) was in attendance, with the majority of attendees from recently graduating classes.
The race itself is a 5K, and in the past few versions of this race, we've followed a variety of different courses due to the ongoing construction at Mt. Greylock HS where the race is held. This year, we'd go up the "big hill" twice in the first woods loop, coming from the direction opposite our usual ascent, and then finish with the other woods loop, a rolling affair with nicely maintained trails. The course is always a bit challenging, but this would be the toughest I've seen it in years.
After the traditional Bear Toss, we took some pictures and then were off. I latched onto the back of a pack of six and followed them up the hill for the first time. During this section, an enterprising young man pulled up alongside and started to recruit me for the Tracksmith masters team. I politely declined and tried to get away. I admired his boldness, but I'm not much of a conversationalist at rest, so doing it at race pace was out of the question.
After the first woods loop, we come back into the field where the race starts and repeat the loop a second time. I moved into fifth place here, waved to my kids on the side, and pushed onward. I caught another guy on our second time tackling the hill, then another, but once we got to the top he accelerated past me and a mini-battle was on. He got a bit of a gap on the long descent but I chipped away over the next half-mile, finally catching and passing him back.
The last mile is tough, with lots of small rises and turns in the woods, and I just wanted to increase my lead here. We eventually get dumped out on the top of a grassy slope which turns right into a short finishing straight. I saw 2nd place up ahead, but he was too far in front to catch. My final time was 16:36, which, unfortunately, has no meaning to me, since this course was different and evidently a little short of 5K. Still, 3rd place is perhaps my best finish in the alumni race, and I was happy with my effort on a tough course.
The next week, it was back to the friendly confines of southern Rhode Island, and a new local trail race at Grills Preserve. With my legs getting hammered from these weekly races, and a big one coming up the following weekend, I opted for the 10K over the 10-mile, even though that choice would rob me of the chance to take on the top runners. This was confirmed after checking the registration lists and seeing that all of the main contenders had indeed registered for the longer race. On the bright side, this gave me an opportunity to use the event as a glorified workout to avoid overdoing it with another all-out effort. I came up with a plan to run the first mile at race pace (so as not to appear to be playing games to the rest of the runners), then, after the 10K and 10M courses diverged, I'd settle into a tempo effort from miles 2-5, finally ratcheting up the effort for a race-pace finish.
After a fun warmup frolic on the latter part of the course with Jonny, we made our way to the start. The first mile is mostly on double-track, which allowed me some space to put in the hard effort. I felt great, and it probably helped my mental state knowing that I'd soon be able to relax and enjoy myself out there. I reached the mile mark in 5:33 and then promptly settled into my tempo effort just as I was hitting the beginning of the single-track. I don't recall many specifics of the next four miles, other than the interesting 'race track' section and the climb to and subsequent treacherous descent from the course's high point, as I was all alone following the incredibly well-marked course. (Having taken wrong turns in less well marked races in the past, I have come to appreciate the work of the volunteers whose job it is to place hundreds of flags -- especially those "confidence flags" that let you know you're still on the right track -- over miles and miles of trail.)
Anyone with a GPS watch knows its limitations on twisty trails, so it's hard to know exactly how far you have gone and how much remains when running a race like this one. I estimated my watch would lose 1/10 of a mile for every mile run, meaning that I could be as much as 0.5 short by the time I hit the start of the final mile. To account for this and appropriately time my harder last mile, I started to surge a bit earlier than my watch suggested. Well, either my watch had its first ever accurate trail measurement, or that course is a bit longer than a 10K, as I finally hit the finish line, after a surprisingly long last "mile," at exactly 6.2 miles. But who really cares? It's a trail race and the times are meaningless, so let's drop it!
In the end, I'd run 39:16 for a NEW COURSE RECORD! (So much for the meaningless times...) Sure, sure, it was the first year of this race's existence, but no one can ever take that away from me, until they beat the time, which they surely will someday soon. But until that day comes, I will enjoy the record, the win, and another jar of Kevin Murphy's delicious honey.
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