Charmed Twenty

Charm City 20-Miler. On Sunday I finally got my twenty-mile training run in at this race, a point-to-point run down a four-foot wide dirt Rails to Trails path through a forest which provided a canopy of foliage overhead to keep the runners in perpetual shade. Sound nice? Early in the morning a bus dropped us off near Maryland Line, MD and our cars were 20 miles away. There was no way to get back except to hoof it. No turning back on my obligatory twenty-miler before my marathon now.

Here are my splits with total time and average pace as the race progressed in five-mile increments in parentheses.

Mile One 11:19 (uh, 3-minute equipment stop) Two 8:11 Three 8:23 Four 8:28 Five 8:52 (45:14-9:03 pace)

Mile Six 7:54 Seven 8:49 Eight 8:38 Nine 8:58 Ten 8:54 (1:28:30-8:51 pace)

Mile Eleven 8:49 Twelve 9:31 (walking water break) Thirteen 8:41 Fourteen 8:46 Fifteen 8:57 (2:13:16-8:53 pace)

Mile Sixteen 9:00 Seventeen 8:56 Eighteen 9:32 (walking water break) Nineteen 9:20 Twenty 9:03 (2:59:10-8:57.5 final pace).

Result. I got my twenty in. I PRed. I broke 3 hours. I took second in my age group. It was a good run.

Race notes. The last mile is uphill on a country highway. I knew it was coming and I started thinking about it as early as MP 15. I was able to handle it by running steadily up it. My worst mile was nineteen when I was getting really tired. But I revived the last mile by being motivated to break three hours. The local running club has quite a resource in this trail and they stage wonderful races on it.

Thanks! I want to thank my friend Ashley for her generous contribution to the charitable cause I am running Chicago for. She also is getting ready to run a fall marathon for charity. Go help her out, she's a terrific person and a good runner.