2018 Old Mountain Trail 5k

Old Mountain Field is a deceiving place. You would never think that these fun little trails are back in this small area. I was pleasantly surprised the first year I ran the race in 2012 and every year has been a little different, between course changes and weather.

December 2012 - 3rd place – 18:57 Fast dry year

January 2014 - 1st place – 23:32 Snow year

December 2014 - 3rd place – 19:08 unmemorable year

December 2015 - 6th place 21:34 Hungover year, TNT Christmas Party the night before.

February 2017 Did Not Run

I felt pretty good going into this race. My training has been uneventful, but consistent. No work outs to speak of, a few solid long runs and a few shorter races.

If I were Eric Lonergan, I would take out every one of these trail races the way he took this one out. FAST. This certainly made me suck wind early, but I said fuck it and went with it. Eric and Greg had a good gap pretty early and I followed Brightman. After about a mile I went by Steve and felt like Greg was coming back a bit, but I think it was just the twisty nature of the course that made him feel closer than he was. I still felt pretty good as we started through the “swamp area” it is twisty and not much of a defined trail. I never felt over my head and was making good progress and then BAM I went down. It was a solid fall but I was up pretty quick, but it definitely took my legs away from me, it took a while to get going again. Once I did I was quickly caught by Garvin and Ronald McTall guy. We headed towards the rock bridge creek crossing, where we were met by the same stupid guy with his two dogs off leash on trail. It was a good thing they were off leash, but this was the second time in the race that these dogs brought us to a crawl, I had to put my hands on the dogs and move them out of the way; fun times. After that we started uphill downhill flat hill who the hell remembers and Garvin and Mr. McTall man went by me. Garvin was passed shortly after. We hit the faster, wider trails on the course and the slick bridges. My new Inov-8s that seemed so sticky and grippy on the ice were basically, as Garvin put it, like roller skates on the bridges. I slid right off one of them. Out onto the field before re-entering the woods, Galoob was yelling at us. I was being caught by Old Man Brightman and Jonny was within distance. There is a hard left-hand turn when re-entering the woods and of course I slipped there too and we head back up the next to lastish hill and that’s when I was just fucking done. Brightman went by me after the stairs and I stayed close, but I was gassed, nothing left.

February 2018 - 6th place 20:18 Wet and muddy year

We did a group cool-down with the WTAC guys and headed over to The Mews. We had a pretty solid Turtle group, plus Brightman and Leslie OD. After that some of us headed up to Proclamation Ale
Company and one thing led to another and it was 7:30pm. A fun Saturday I would say.

2018 Krispy Kreme Challenge

Here is a brief recap of my 4th Krispy Kreme Challenge.

As usual, we arrived on Friday, the day before the race. The day is filled with travel, then eating and drinking in Raleigh. This year we had a couple addictions to our crew. Fellow Turtle Ralph Lufkin came down and convinced his friend Jason Gilmore to travel in from Washington DC. Also, a fellow Toll Gate alum, who had run the race a few times prior to us came down as well.

We ate and drank in a responsible manner (well I did). This made race day morning an easy wake-up and I felt ready to roll. This was by far the coldest year of the race with the starting temp around 23 degrees. No big deal for a normal road race…but at Krispy Kreme it meant for frozen water cups at the donut eating area and very frozen/numb/burning hands for the run back.

The race went out per usual, with the herds of college kids going out like it is a 100 meter dash. I went through the mile in 5:27 and felt good. I was running with the multi time KKC winner Nick Oltman for a minute or so before pulling away, if I could only figure out his donut eating secret, I could be a contender for the W.

After he mile I passed a few more people and then one more around 2 miles to end up in 7th place heading into the eating area.

Same ole, same ole in there. It’s a wet, sugary dough dilled experience. I could see Ralph and Mark whom came in after me eating away. Ralph finished about 10 seconds before me and I took off after him and passed him before leaving the zone, he said I made a lot of grunting noises and I was off to the races.

New for me this year was that I had someone around the same speed leave the eating area at the same time as me. We had an elbow to elbow race all the way back. He would put a few steps away from me and then me from him. With just over a mile to go, we passed one of his friends and it gave him a boost. I think it was too much of a boost for his body to handle though; I passed him shortly after and was able to open up a 4 second lead from there til the finish.

 

I have had a goal since my first KKC to finish in the top 10 and have been pretty close in my previous three attempts. I wasn’t sure what place I finished when crossing the finish line and had to wait a bit to find out as I ran back to the hotel quickly to tend to my frozen literally frosty hands. After I took care of that issue, I ran back to the finish line and met up with everyone and headed to the result tent and got my print out………..drum roll please……9th place!! I was pretty excited. I also ran 4 seconds faster than the previous year, keeping my streak of running faster every year alive!

 

2015 – 19th 37:17
2016 – 13th 35:13
2017 – 18th 34:45
2018 – 9th 34:41 <---official time

The rest of the trip was great as usual, lots of great breweries and food was had. The most amazing part about the 2018 edition, other than getting 9th place was that we had no flight issues. We made it to Raleigh and back to Warwick without issue.

Next year, I WILL be in better running shape and I might….figure out how to eat faster, probably not though!

2018 USATF East Region and NE Masters Championship

Another January and another USATF East Region and NE Masters Championship that I did not plan on running, nor did I train for, yet I ended up at.

I was pretty positive I was NOT going to run this race this year, but I ended up deciding to run it about a week and a half out. I did not decide what to run until about 4 days before the race though

I settled on running the 3000, mile and 800. I have no desire to run the 5000 on the indoor track and will never do it no matter what!

I figured I would give the 800 a whirl, because why not!

Here is a very quick run-down of each race.

3000 meters
First race of the day for me, I felt like I got out well and fell behind a big group of guys that went out behind Scott Leslie. I knew Scott would win and would probably be a minute in front of me. After a couple of laps I caught up to the group that was ahead of me and I settled in. When I felt like my stride was getting hindered, I move by 2 or 3 of them and fell in behind 2nd place. Same deal with 2nd place, after like 3 more laps I went by because I felt I was being slowed. I didn’t want to be the one doing the work, but away I went. I was able to hold on to 2nd place running just under 10 mins in 9:57. Mission accomplished.

Excuse me...

Pardon me...

1 Mile
I was pretty spent from the 3000 and I did not get out too well in this race. Of course I wanted to get as close to 5 flat as possible and went out just over pace in around 38. I went through the half in around 2:33+ and kinda just held onto that running 5:08. I was able to run some people down in the 2nd half of the race, so that was good.

800 meters
Hahaha….yeah. Well. I had a stretch goal of breaking 2:20. It was not that long ago that I would end 800 meter work outs in the low 2:20s….but hey, you are only as fast as what you train for and I don’t train for the track. With that said, I felt I got out great in the first 100 meters. I wasn’t sleeping like I was in the mile. I went through the 400 in around 70/71 and damn my legs hated me. I brought it home in a 2:24 and was happy to not be running around a track again anytime soon.

Overall the day was a success in my opinion. I got the legs turning over and I got to have some “fun” racing. Next year...I will do some work outs prior to race day!

Full Results

Per usual, a big group of us hit Ogie’s Trailer Park for after race food and drinks. It has turned into a pretty nice tradition.