It is interesting that anyone can wake up amazingly early if you *really* want to. Easier so in the winter and the reason involves 6-8 year olds playing hockey.
Once April is on the lead calendar page, getting up at with anything that starts with a FIVE just doesn't happen unless the FIVE is in the afternoon or something really unique is about to occur.
And so it is with the Merrimack River Trail 10 miler ~ AKA: The Riv-AH to utilize the local vernacular.
With everyone leaving for vacation except for me, there was nothing to do except go to this race or stay home and clean the house.
It took me a 100 minutes to Andover.
Last week was a bit of a bummer because I didn't break 3 hours (or the top 50) for the Northern Nipmuck. So, this week included only 2 shorter runs, both indoors and both shoeless - yes, running in socks-only on the FieldTurf fields back-and-forth. Not fast, not fancy but, by Friday, I felt refreshed and ready to go. This race is shorter and flatter and maybe I could do better.
The race gathering was pretty typical for a trail race. The giveway was the Start / Finish line which was actually a clothes line at one end of the parking lot between two trees that had a collection of previous Riv-AH race tees much like Tibetan Prayer Flags. Low tech.
And a pretty good turn out on the Saturday before the Boston Marathon. But, we have better weather.
I took a slight out and back on the course before the start (which I never really do). This actually told me things: 1) Wear shorts and not tights, 2) go with the fanny pack, 3) wear shades for sun and face protection, 4) you'll get muddy no matter how low the Merrimack River is this year.
The start had the whole field go from parking lot to a trail maybe 12 feet wide in the first 30 feet. I felt like having General Admission seating for a Who concert! But, it all worked out and by the first significant turn to go along the river 50 yards in, we were all in some version of a single track.
All in all, the first three miles is very traditional modern river park with a flat, dirt hiking trail except going under I-93. The embankment is made of large flat very slippery rocks with large drop offs on each edge. At least there was no visible glass or garbage.
The first 2 miles went by in 15-and-change and 3 went by at 24. All in all, a nice pace. Talked for a while to a man (Doug from Longmeadow) behind me. He warned me about a few landmarks and upcoming hills. Came in handy for the power-line hills at about 4 miles in. The hills weren't really long and weren't as steep as Soapstone's Killer Hill but the lead runner was coming back as we were going up the second part and that necessitated we get out of the way of the loonie as he went airborne past us. The rest of the way to the turn around was rolling, muddy and challenging (including a really good steep downhill with a creek crossing & subsequent fall. Back up and not losing more than a step was good but I did feel a good abrasion on my knee.
The turn around was a quick one at 42 minutes even.
The best part about out-and-backs is that you know what is coming up and have a tendancy to push a bit more because you know the conditions and the course. Even with some fatigue (and many ankle rollings over massively exposed tree roots), the power-line hills came and went with only limited power walking and the race for the last 4 miles was on.
The last 5 splits surpassed even my best hopes: 9:56 (including the powerlines and power hiking); 8:19; 8:27 7:31; 6:57. You gotta like any trail race which has a mile split that starts with a SIX and doesn't include your lifeless corpse sliding down an avalanche or rolling out of control down a scree.
The last half-mile or so was basically an all-out sprint by all the people within eyesight (except me as I had been going that hard just to catch up with them). The finish came mercifully in 1:23:39 for 10 miles and 87th out of 230.
Certainly a pace that I would have been happy with if I had been home training on road.
I got to stick around and chat with people after the race. A few more people recognized me by the boonie and I enjoyed talking with them about this race and the Grand Tree in general.
Interestingly enough, the one unifying topic seems to be the 7 Sisters - either you hate the course, or you've never done it before. Not too many people from this event who were *not* doing it this year.
And that is the next one for me to start preparing for.
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