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It’s Labor Day, and my thoughts naturally turned to Gloucester and those 16 crazy hills. I made a game time decision to run the Around Cape Ann 25K for a 4th time. I’m really growing to love this course that winds around the beautiful shoreline, marshes and towns of Cape Ann.  I haven’t run a solo race in a while, and I need to be hitting that 15 mile distance soon anyway as I train for Stone Cat, so it seemed like a good opportunity to check on my pacing and fitness in a supported run.  The race organizers and volunteers do a great job with plenty of water, gatorade, cooling stations, traffic management and cheering, and of course the hills also keep things interesting.

I didn’t really have a plan going in, other than relax and keep myself hydrated and fueled.  I expected my legs to be a little sore from hiking earlier in the weekend, but they loosened up during a 10 minute run on Sunday, so I figured I could make the distance even if it got a little ugly at the end.  I ate my standard breakfast of Cracklin Oat Bran, raisins and kefir (a new addition to Beej’s amazing cheesemaking skills – a little lighter and sweeter than yogurt – yum!), grabbed my mug of coffee, and headed down the north shore.  It was a beautiful clear morning that promised to heat up quickly, with a little bit of a breeze.

With little fanfare other than chatting with nearby women in the porta-john line and seeing Neil from the Newburyport Monday running group, we were off!  It took about 15 seconds to get to the starting line, but frankly the start seemed much less hectic, with fewer elbows, than previous years.  I thought of the race as three 5-mile segments, and decided to just loosen up my sore legs and settle in during the first one.  My goal for the hills was to run them strong – that would be the training part of the run – and to try to recover between them to keep a relatively constant perceived exertion.

I was cruising along after mile 5 and made an effort to drink a bit more in the second segment, as it was getting hotter and the open sunny portion of the course was yet to come.  The combination of double-strength Heed and Gatorade, and probably ingesting a little too much air as I gulped them down, left me with an unhappy tummy in the middle of the race.  I used the downhills to recover some speed (and also the pounding to settle out the air in my stomach – hey, no one around me knew me, so I could burp with impunity!).  I can’t tell based on my splits if my pace really was erratic, or if it was some combination of hills and measurements, but overall I kept a pretty steady pace.

Coming into the third and last segment, I got a second wind and started passing runners who were faltering.  I especially focused on women who might be in my age group, though anyone I could reel in was a good target to keep pushing myself. I knew that last #@%& of a hill was lurking at the end, so I wanted to keep a little reserve to sprint up it to the finish in the last half mile. Mostly I just tried to run efficiently, enjoyed the marsh views and thanked the volunteers along the course.  I also thought about how good an orange popsicle would taste at the end.  The last mile and a half always seems long, but soon enough I was passing McDonald’s (and about 10 runners who slowed to a walk), pushing up the last hill and had the finish line in sight.

Here’s how things looked on my watch:

Mile            split                    cumulative

1                  0:08:53              0:08:53
2                  0:08:36              0:17:29
3                  0:08:39              0:26:08
4                  0:08:30             0:34:38
5                  0:08:33             0:43:11
6                  0:08:55             0:52:06
7                  0:08:29              1:00:35
8                 0:08:44              1:09:19
9                 0:09:21              1:18:40
10               0:08:04              1:26:44
11               0:08:38              1:35:22
12               0:09:17             1:44:39
13               0:07:38             1:52:17
14               0:08:31             2:00:48
15.5            0:12:37             2:13:25

Official results are here, average page 8:36 (no surprise I defaulted to that pace, that’s been my target race pace for the 2 years I trained to run a Boston Qualifying marathon!).

I found that dumping water down my back or running through a hose really helped as a pick-me-up.  My singlet and shorts were definitely the right thing to wear to stay cool, and I *love* my Kinvaras (and once again saw a lot of others wearing them).  Not a blister to be had, despite a very heavy weekend on my feet.  In hindsight I think I would have been better off with Heed before the race, plain water in my hand bottle, with gel for fuel and Endurolytes when needed.

After grabbing my popsicle, some water, and a banana, it was time to head home.  And yes we did have a burger on the grill with fresh tomato and corn on the cob for dinner, a more common Labor Day tradition.