Race Report for New Braintree Road Race

When I woke up this morning it was only 35 degrees outside. Autumn has officially descended upon us. YAY!!!

I was reminded of a sobering fact this morning - Never judge the difficulty of a race by the total distance. Many of my friends are nearing the peak of their marathon training right now and consequently they are really racking up the miles. I have an 18-miler scheduled for tomorrow myself. But somehow this lulled me into thinking that the race I was doing this morning was “just a little 4.2 mile road race.” No big deal, right?

Two words for ya - Holy crap! I run regularly on some pretty hilly terrain, but this course still seemed very difficult for me. Either that or my kids have gained a ton of weight in the last 2 days.

New Braintree Road Race

The race was being run in conjunction with the New Braintree Country Fair. It’s the quintessential small town fair. Live music, car show, antique hit or miss engines, bounce house, sack races, etc. Today’s road race was the 9th annual running. I registered too late to get the t-shirt which is too bad because the short was actually rather nice.

I went out quickly and did my best to take advantage of the downhills when I could, because I could tell from looking ahead at the uphills that I had my work cut out for me. My splits were as follows:
Mile 1 - 6:59
Mile 2 - 8:17 (Holy hills)
Mile 3 - 8:29 (Even more hills)
Mile 4 - 7:09
0.2 - 1:14
—————
4.2mi - 32:08 (7:39 pace)

The girls and I did well (Yes, they both beat me again - one of these days I’m going to cross the finish line backwards just so I can beat THEM). Despite the stroller and the hills I still took 3rd for my Age Group. McKenna was on sitting my shoulders when they called me up for the medal so they put it on her instead. She wouldn’t take it off until we got home.

It was a great way to spend a New England Autumn Saturday morning with my girls. My wife and I are taking the kids to the Belchertown Fair this afternoon. Pics below (click to enlarge):

Oh yeah, don’t forget to check out our new podcast.

Click here to go directly to iTunes for the podcast.

You can also check out the podcast site here.