MDay-99 -- Sat. June 13

Schedule says do enough miles to top off the week at 35-40; as it happens, there's the Granby Charter Day 10K, and we Swifties are doing it. Early start, biking out the 5+ miles to Dufresne park, and register. Sri B. is there, and we chat. John and Nick arrive, and later Ken, and with some chatting Sri volunteers to be our fifth member -- so, we have a team! Muggy day, with some cool in the shade but a pretty hot sun. Four of us (sans Ken) do an easy 1.6 miles warmup and then stretch a bit before heading out to the start. Nearly 90 people there, nice crowd, and pretty soon we're off. Three faster guys out front pretty quickly, and then a short kid (turns out he's 13) sprints out and leads the rest for the first mile -- which we do in 6:15, me and Sri close behind him (then he drops back, but still finishes in 45 mins, pretty solid). Then I move ahead of Sri and a couple of other guys, blueshirt and whiteshirt do too, and they both overtake me too. I hold back a bit given the distance to go and the hills in the second half. Mainly an uneventful run -- three waterstops, but I only use the middle one; constant battle with blueshirt, leading him for some of mile two, but then trailing again for a while; finally, he slows a bit (probably a 5K runner) and in mile 4-5 I get close enough and overtake in mile 5. Stay focussed on catching whiteshirt, and though I close a good bit I can't catch him -- get to within 17 seconds, leaving blueshirt 46 seconds behind. Feel strong if not fast in last mile and a half, and have a strong sprint at the end. Came in 5th, here's the data:

Time: 40:32 (40:31)
Distance: 6.2 (6.21)
Pace/Speed: 6:32s/9.18 mph

Comments: happy enough with the improvement--achilles tendon and lower shin/calf muscles not too bad. Still not sure how to sort this course, as I think I could do it faster, but doing the flats at a higher pace would tire me for the end. Ah well, that's for next year. This year splits were: 6:16, 6:34, 6:29, 6:39, 6:37, 6:48, [5:07 pace].

Added cool down run, so got 2.72 more easy-paced miles in all (plus the bike ride).

Swifties did fine: Sri came in 7th, Ken 8th (both sub-7s), and Jon pipped one runner at the post to get 18th and win his class, with Nick just behind at 29th, (7:13s and 7:16s respectively). Jon's was the only trophy as there was some confusion regarding team registration so they didn't award it; ah, well, c'est la vie.