Race Reports Archives - Over The Hill

Baystate Half-Marathon 2:05

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Oct 222012

Gorgeous day for a race with wonderful crowds and mostly nice course. I do wish they had mile markers every mile as I got confused several times. I forgot to start my watch so I was at the mercy of course markings. Now, this may be considered flat by some people but it’s not smutty nose flat. God that one bridge in particular felt a little masochistic the second time around.

I started the day with intestinal distress and light nausea and almost didn’t get in the car to go. Sitting my car before the race my HR was up to 72, up about 12. During the race my HR remained high and I started to get what I call excessive heart rate nausea followed by the predictable chills. Basically I was headed into stupidville over-reaching territory. I massively pulled my pace back from 9:00 to 11:00 for the last 3 miles and walked the last water stops and then walked 2 times in the last mile. Ended up averaging 9:30 for the race.

2012 Smuttynose Rockfest Half Marathon 2:02

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Sep 302012

Finished in 2:02, which is a personal best for me, 10 minutes faster than my previous best of 2:12:43 at Twin Lights Half in 2011. Still waiting for the official times to be posted but this should be within seconds of their number. This is the first race since my injury a year ago where I felt like a runner again. I guess the diagnoses of activity induced asthma was correct because using my new inhaler totally crushed the breathing problems I had 2 weeks ago at the Allstate Half Mary, even though the temperature and dew point were similar.

Allstate Half Marathon for Autism

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Sep 162012

Perfect day for a race. Cool, sunny and with gorgeous views. I had a great long run last weekend and a great taper. Too bad this race turned into a total train wreck for me. Yes I finished (whoohoo) my first half marathon since I ruptured my Achilles tendon last year, so I need to hang on to that.

Course Map

But I really struggled through most of the race. The interesting thing is that my legs and body were strong the entire race, but after mile 4-5 or so I started having trouble catching my breath. By the end I could not even take a full deep breath without pain and that continued for over an hour after the race was over. Did I go out too fast in the beginning with cooler air? I just can’t explain it. Oh well, I have another half marathon in 2 weeks, so I better figure out what went wrong!

Chelsea Chase 5K

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Apr 282012

My first official race since my injury. I ran to support a friend who was running her first race ever. She claimed she could only run 11 minute miles so I thought this would be a “safe” race for me. She then proceeded to go all crazy on me. Some portions we were at 8:30 pace and I was Okaaaaayyyy let’s slow it down. Ankle is a little sore now, but it was great fun overall. And a great cause. This course has some challenging hills but finishes on a nice half mile flat straightaway.

It benefits the Jordan Boys & Girls Club and the Chelsea Police Relief Association and the police all ran as a group. It was really cool to see them run in formation and you could hear them chanting in unison no matter where you were on the course. It looks to me that they ran as slow as their slowest runner as a way to show solidarity, and it worked.

Official bib time on this was 29:51, which is a 9:37 pace. I really held my friend back and I think I asked her to slow down half a dozen times. She later went on to run her first 10K with a great time and I think we may be looking at a new person hooked on running!

2011 B.A.A. 10K

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Jun 262011

I signed up for the inaugural run of the Boston Athletic Association’s 10k race because I just knew I could not miss out of the beginning of a new running tradition in Boston. With this race the B.A.A now hosts a 5K, 10K, Half Marathon and of course the famous Boston Marathon. All except the marathon are open to all public in a first come first serve basis and usually sell out almost immediately. I used their website to reserve my place as soon as they were accepting signups, and even so my number was 407. Somehow 407 people snagged numbers in the 1 minute it took me to fill out the online form!.

I found the setup to really well done on the Boston Common, with all the quality one comes to expect from the Boston Athletic Association. They had live music, bathrooms, bag check and plenty to drink. Here is the video I took which offers a lot more information about the race:

The following are some pictures from the day:

[Show as slideshow]

Twin Lights Half Marathon Race Report

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May 212011

Last weekend I competed in the inaugural run of the Twin Lights Half Marathon in Gloucester, MA. It was an important race for me because I had several milestone goals:

I wanted to run the 13.1 miles continuously without stopping even briefly or walking at all.
I wanted to improve upon my 2:28:17 time from the first half of the Boston Marathon
I wanted to keep my pace as even as possible

2011 Boston Marathon

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Apr 292011

I am very happy to report that I was able (barely) to complete the full 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston in 5:42:55! It was a gorgeous day, with a light wind at our backs, partly cloudy and reasonable temperature. The first half of the marathon went extremely well and I was well on my way to finish in under 5 hours with a 2:28 half marathon time. As those of you who have been following my training know, I have been having trouble maintaining pace after 16 miles and unfortunately it was no different on marathon day. By mile 21 I was in pretty bad shape and ended up walking and jogging the remaining 5 miles as best I could, stopping every half mile or so to stretch the cramps out of my legs. I have to admit that there were times in that last hour that I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to finish, but the energy of the screaming crowds, the support of follow runners and the encouragement of my team coaches (who ran with me part of those last miles) made the difference.

“First Run” 5K in Lowell MA

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Jan 012011

Every year Lowell hosts a 5K / 10K race on the first of January called “First Run”. I thought I would give it a try and see if I had improved much since the Flutie 5K in the fall. It was a gorgeous day and even though many of the participants were probably suffering from hangovers, the spirits seemt o be running high.

I managed to pull off a PR of 30:58, roughly 3 minutes faster than the fall. Here is a video of the race:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsjTTTre2qY” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

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