Training

I did 4x 800m at 2:28-2:31 today on the track with Peter Haine and the Kennett X-C team, who have the Division meet this weekend.   Yesterday I did 10 miles in the woods with Frank Holmes, who is planning on joining me for the Key West Half Marathon again this year.  That event is a great excuse to eat ice cream in the middle of winter.  Most body parts seem to be holding together for a change!

The White Mountain Milers half marathon is this weekend; I think I would have rather race the 5k on Saturday but that conflicts with the team's XC meet, and Nick wants to run the half again this year and see what he can do, so I will give the half a shot.

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Darin

Proud Dad

Nick won the NH X-C Middle School State Meet today with a blistering 11:46 for 2.1 miles.  He was around 5:30 for the first mile, behind the Tri-County champion who was looking very strong.  However, Carlos tried a couple of surges to break Nick which appeared to backfire, and Nick kicked in the last 300 meters to the cries of "look at that kid go" in the audience around the finish line.  A youngster from Oyster River came in strong for second.  Justin Carbone took the Large School race in 11:52 (Nick's Granite State Flash Teammate).

Melissa ended up a bit disappointed with her finish (17th place?) at 15:34.  She wasn't feeling great and this was only her third ever middle school race (she was 7th at Plymouth and 11th at Belmont earlier this year).  She has two more years to move up...

Darin

getting back into shape

Todays workout was highly encouraging.  I ran a loop I cleverly call "Around the Lake" as it goes, well, around a lake.  A lot of it is on the road but some is on dirt, including the last mile which is virtually all uphill.  My prior personal best (set 2 years ago) was 73:07 for 10.65 miles.   Today I managed a very nice 72:44, although I cut the last bit so the net was only 10.46 miles.  I was dying miserably at the end, running 7:44 for the last mile (up the big hill) after averaging 6:40's for most of the rest.

I am encouraged enough by this that I may sign up for another race.  Although watching Nick win races and go for course records is fun, too.  His latest victory was the Kennett Invitational, where he hit 11:38 running alone and against a 30 MPH wind.  This was only 3 seconds from the course record that was set during a two man battle between world ranked biathlete Sean Dougherty and Fryeburg Academy standout Silas Eastman (who just broke his course record at FA with a 15:57 last weekend).

That's some good company!

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Darin

First 5k road race this season

I took Nick and Melissa to the 3rd annual Gary Millen memorial 5k today.  After running around yesterday at Coe-Brown's Black Bear Invitational with the high school team, giving splits and cheering on the Kennett kids, I was a bit fatigued.  I planned to try to run with Nick, maybe picking it up if I was feeling good in the last mile.  The pouring rain didn't encourage fast times, either.

We started out at 5:51, which was a bit quick for Nick (who was going for 6:00 per mile pace) and a bit slow for me to stay with the leaders, but overall a good split.  I went 6:13 for the second mile.  I never understand why on this course, where the second mile is down hill, that this is the slowest mile, but it seems to be the case every year.  I left Nick in mile 3 and ran 5:41, but it was not enough to catch the leaders, including race winner Steve Piotrow (17:55) and long time racing companion Jasmin Lepir (18:13).  I finished in 18:18, which is my season's best  (naturally, as it's my first race), and Nick finished next at 18:54, which is his PR (prior best was this race last year, at 19:41).  Melissa hit her best too at 24:21.  The three of us won age division awards.

There is another 5k coming up in two weeks at Whitaker Woods, and the kids have their home X-C invitationals this week, so much more to come!

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Darin