Sorry this is a little late, but I have been busy and really wanted to post this with the photos.

This was to be a tune up and judge of where I might stand in my efforts for a sub 40 at my goal race at the Beach to Beacon 10K on August 4th. So my goal was to run as close to 40:00 as I could, but I would be pretty happy to be around 42:00 ? 42:30.

I met up with three of my running friends, the photo shows Jerry, me, Joel and Brian:


After a nice pre-race warm up of 1.6 miles we were ready to go and headed for the start. While standing around ?Alexis? came over and said hi, she is the girl that I ended up out kicking at the finish at the Sugarloaf 15K and she wanted to know what I was looking to run today. I explained that I was going to go out at a sub 40 pace of 6:25 miles and try to run as close to that pace as possible but that I thought I might more realistically be in the 42 ? 42:30 range and she said she would love to tag along as she hoped to run around 42 as well.

The race started pretty much on time and we were off, this photo shows me and Alexis just to my left just after the start of the race:

I really enjoyed running with Alexis and explained to her that I was going to give it everything I had to maintain a 6:25 average pace and that I didn?t want to go out too fast which I had a bad habit of doing especially with the quick down hill start at this race. So we talked and pulled it back a bit after rounding the first curve and coming off the down hill at what was about a 5:30 pace. We did a great job though as we passed the 1st mile marker in 6:24. I was quite pleased with that and knew that if I could keep it up especially through the hills I would be in pretty good shape.

During the next mile we passed quite a few of the ?rabbits? and I was feeling pretty good. And we passed the second mile marker in 6:30. That wasn?t bad and I was pretty happy with that since there was a pretty good 100 foot climb over about a .25 mile of the second mile.

Alexis began to drop off somewhere after the second mile as I realized she wasn?t with me anymore and I was cruising along pretty good setting my sights on runners and picking them off as I went along. Well this is where this race took a ?tumble? so to speak. At around 2.5 miles into the race I felt something hit my right foot and went to look back when all of a sudden I realized I was going a$$ over tea kettle. I know my instincts took over and I put my hands out and landed mostly on my right side and my head slammed into the pavement with a thud?**** that hurt. Well of course I was dazed and a bit confused, several runners stopped, including Brian who was just ahead of me but I motioned for him to continue on. I grabbed my right sneaker unlaced it and put it back on and re-tied it. Then the runner to my left said ?you?re bleeding pretty badly from your head, and I could feel the blood as it began to trickle down into my left eye and onto my left cheek. I instinctively took off my Garmin and the sweat band that I usually wear and used that to soak up the blood. One of the runners asked if I wanted them to get me some medical assistance and I immediately said no way, worrying that they wouldn?t let me finish if I did that. So with that I started running with my Garmin in my right hand and my left hand holding my now blood soaked sweat band to my head. As I started running I had no idea at that time if I would really be able to finish the race, but with each step I took I became more convinced that I could do it, **** it was only a little cut?no broken bones, no quitting, onward and upward?quite literally! I ended up passing the 3rd mile marker in 7:02.

As I would pass water stops, grabbing a cup of water at each I might add or any other volunteers I would get quite a look and of course the ?are you ok? or ?do you need medical assistance? and I would just wave and let them know I was fine.

I had no idea how far I had fallen behind Brian or Alexis and knew that anything close to a 40:00 was down the tubes at this point so I figured I would settle into this pace and finish nice and strong. As I was going along it was a bit of a pain in the butt to have to run with my left hand up to my head for a good part of the time, but I found that if I didn?t for too long I would start bleeding again. As I trudged along at what I figured to be a 7:00 pace I began picking off more runners and found that I wasn?t being passed anymore either, now that felt pretty good and gave me a bit of a boost. I passed the 4th mile marker at 7:00 even.

I knew that this next mile was the toughest as it had a really good hill about midway through and I continued on getting quite a few ?good job?, ?way to tough it out man? and other appropriate comments from runners that had seen me either go down or down and getting up etc. I passed mile marker 5 at 7:02 feeling pretty good and headed down the final stretch of straight away as we were headed towards downtown Freeport and the LL Bean Store where the race finishes. I could clearly see a few guys in front of me that I thought were probably in my age group along with a few others and set my sights on them. I simply maintained my pace and figured I would finish at this pace and then kick it in at the finish and try to go by them. I even thought I could see Alexis pink shirt up quite a ways and figured I probably wouldn?t be able to catch her, but would get as close as I could. I passed the 6th mile marker in 6:54.

I began to pick it up a little as I got closer to the finish, the crowds got larger and I felt stronger as I began to kick and passed the whole group I had been eyeing. It was just about then I heard my wife and saw her as she snapped a few photos. One youngster with no shirt on passed me just before the finish line I didn?t see him so he came from behind me.
Here are a couple of photos from the finish:



This was what my cut looked like right after the finish:



This is the nice sewing job that the doctor did:


And this is me today, nice black eye huh:



So bottom line ? I still set a ?course? PR knocking off 45 seconds from my previous best with an official time of 42:44 ? 8th in my AG ? 111th OA out of 711 finishers.

So even though I am disappointed with what took place, I am thankful that nothing was broken (my nose is already big enough and couldn?t take another break)! And I actually have gained a lot of confidence as I know my time would have been much better and I think I probably would have placed 3rd or better had I not fallen ? third was 41:22 and second was 41:12 my friend Jerry took second. This gives me a great deal of confidence in my ability to run very close to 40 if not the allusive sub 40 next month at the Beach to Beacon 10K.

If you made it through all of this thanks for reading and now you know what I meant by this one left me in stitches, oh yeah 8 to be exact!




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"Keep on Running"
Bob