Kings of Beer (Aaron Beer, Dan McGinty, Jesse Morrow, Marc MacDonald, Seth Maleri)
Event: Mill Cities Relay
Distance: 5 legs, 27 miles (5.4, 4.75, 2.5, 9.5, 4.75)
Expected Time: 3:20:30
Actual Time: 3:10:26
Aaron and I met Dan and Marc at the School in Nashua. We prepared our uniforms, bits of Clydesdale red mixed in with SRR Black & Gold. Marc had purchased bandanas for us.
As I began to figure out the red bandana, Brendan (of iPhone meteorology fame) came up to me: “Are you all wearing red for Budweiser Clydesdale?”
“Yep,” I said. He got a kick out of it.
With Seth (hopefully) at transition 1 already, I made my way to the start line with Aaron and Marc giving me a bit of encouragement. At 8:00 am they “dropped the brick” to start the race. (As Marc commented, a far cry from the cannon start at MDI).
Leg 1: 5.4 Miles – Jesse (expected time: 38:00 – 7:02/mi)
Our main goal was to beat Pauls and the Lovely Ladies (there were beers riding on it). As I was matched up with Korynn, goal one was obviously beat her by as much as I could. Considering she has been running her best ever with recent PRs at Casey’s, and MDI along with a trail race at the Wolf Sox 10K – I was not taking it lightly.
It was still my first race since my season defining MiamiMan Duathlon. I had spent the last three weeks taking it easy from training. This week and next week’s Winter Classic were to be my intermezzo between 2011 and training for Blackwater 2012. That said, I was going to try to beat my 5-mile PR pace set in the heat of July in Southie. Little did I know I would bust into Beast Mode!
The first mile was cold and I wished I had worn gloves. I was briefly distracted when we crossed the Merrimack as the sun was refracted by a misty fog that played weird tricks with the view of the Victorian era looking pylons from a long gone rail bridge that might remind one of a Wordsworth poem. (But, I digress).
At the end of the first mile, I had run a 6:42. This was scarily ahead of my pace. Yet, I did not feel like I was running fast. Normally, when I am running too fast, it feels like I’m running fast. I did not feel like I was running fast – hmmm. Now I’m sure in Zen and the Art of Running (a book, I’m sure must exist) it discusses the wu wei of running. The least effort per step leads to faster times. I really felt I was closer to successful wu wei running than I ever have been. I continued running what felt like not running.
Miles 2 – 4 whizzed by at comfortable sub 7 speeds that I would never have thought of running two months ago. When I watched my Garmin to get to mile 4.5 (an attachment that despite Coach Tim’s urging, I have yet to break the bonds of). Here I moved from wu wei into BEAST MODE. The last mile from 4.4-5.4 I did in under 6:30 and the last 800, I broke 3:00.
Turning into the Sears, I realized they probably weren’t ready for me. So, I started yelling over the crowd of supporters: “Seth! I’m Coming!” I reached the hand off to find no Seth. I continued yelling: “Seth! SETH!” Then out of the Corner of my eye, I caught so a red flash attempting to jump up and grab the slap-bracelet (replacement for baton). Seth was not prepared for me to run so fast and had to fight his way through the crowd to get to me. I handed him the red bracelet and walked through the crowd to high fives from Marc, Aaron and Dan who were congratulating me on my beast mode time.
Normal Jesse: 5 miles – Jimmy Kane 5 miler – 37:25 (7:28/mi)
Beast Mode Jesse – 5.4 Miles – 36:17 (6:43/mi)
(For the Record: Korynn did have her own beast mode at 39 minutes and would have put normal Jesse and the Kings of Beer into a bit of a bind.)
Leg 2: 4.75 Miles – Seth (expected time: 36:48 – 7:45/miles)
Seth finished his best 5k two months ago at 7:30 speed. He followed that up with PR at MDI. Running at his best from those two, Macmillan calculated around 7:45s so that was my estimation. Macmillan and I were wrong:
Normal Seth: 5K – Homeless Coalition 5K – 23:20 (7:30/mi)
Beast Mode Seth: 4.75 miles – 34:50 (7:20/mi)
Leg 3: 2.5 Miles – Aaron (expected time: 18:45 – 7:30/mi)
This was Aaron’s second race since his injured New York Marathon. Putting in 7:30s is what I would expect with his “season” over and this as a wrap up. Once again I was wrong.
Normal Aaron: 5K – An Ras Mor – 23:02 (7:24/mi)
Beast Mode Aaron: 2.5 miles – 18:00 (7:12/mi)
Leg 4: 9.5 Miles – Dan (expected time: 1:11:15 – 7:30/mi)
Dan has had a great past few months. Yet he expected to run 7:45s (since he finished with the Police Academy and no longer has to endure Bobcat Goldthwait but also isn’t forced to run every day); I gave him a conservative estimate of 7:30s – knowing he might actually run 7:15s. Dan and I were quite wrong.
Normal Dan: 15K – Bow Lake Dam 15K – 1:09:38 (7:29/mi)
Beast Mode Dan: 9.5 Miles – 1:06:19 (6:58/mi)
Leg 5: 4.75 Miles – Marc (expected time: 35:37 – 7:30/mi)
While Dan’s improvement has been the most drastic, Marc has probably had the most linear and consistent improvements of any members of the Kings of Beer over the last two years.
Based on his killer Casey’s Halloween run, I expected Marc, a month and a half out from his marathon, to throw down something like 7:30 miles. Once again, MacMillan and I were wrong.
Normal Marc: 4.06 miles – Casey’s Thursday Night Halloween Run – 29:57 (7:22/mi)
Beast Mode Marc: 4.75 miles – 34:00 (7:09/mi)
Kings of Beer finished at 3:10:26 (7:03/mi), which would mean we would still lose a marathon race to Coach Tim and many others; but we would but combined Boston Qualifier. It also won us each a free beer from The Pauls and the Lovely Ladies whom we beat by 8 minutes. We fiished 77th out of 207 and 22nd out of 30 in the Men’s Open.
SRR Shoutouts
Bed Bugs Can’t Stop Us – 2nd in the Men’s Open
Masters of their Own Domain – 1st Men’s Masters
Get Off My Lawn – 2nd Men’s Seniors
En Fuego – 2nd Women’s Open
Geezergirls – 2nd Women’s Veterans
Nuke to a Knife Fight – 1st Coed Open
Can’t Stop Them… - 3rd Coed Masters
Somerville was also the second place club – 12 points behind Gate City.
Distance: 5 legs, 27 miles (5.4, 4.75, 2.5, 9.5, 4.75)
Expected Time: 3:20:30
Actual Time: 3:10:26
Aaron and I met Dan and Marc at the School in Nashua. We prepared our uniforms, bits of Clydesdale red mixed in with SRR Black & Gold. Marc had purchased bandanas for us.
As I began to figure out the red bandana, Brendan (of iPhone meteorology fame) came up to me: “Are you all wearing red for Budweiser Clydesdale?”
“Yep,” I said. He got a kick out of it.
With Seth (hopefully) at transition 1 already, I made my way to the start line with Aaron and Marc giving me a bit of encouragement. At 8:00 am they “dropped the brick” to start the race. (As Marc commented, a far cry from the cannon start at MDI).
Leg 1: 5.4 Miles – Jesse (expected time: 38:00 – 7:02/mi)
Our main goal was to beat Pauls and the Lovely Ladies (there were beers riding on it). As I was matched up with Korynn, goal one was obviously beat her by as much as I could. Considering she has been running her best ever with recent PRs at Casey’s, and MDI along with a trail race at the Wolf Sox 10K – I was not taking it lightly.
It was still my first race since my season defining MiamiMan Duathlon. I had spent the last three weeks taking it easy from training. This week and next week’s Winter Classic were to be my intermezzo between 2011 and training for Blackwater 2012. That said, I was going to try to beat my 5-mile PR pace set in the heat of July in Southie. Little did I know I would bust into Beast Mode!
The first mile was cold and I wished I had worn gloves. I was briefly distracted when we crossed the Merrimack as the sun was refracted by a misty fog that played weird tricks with the view of the Victorian era looking pylons from a long gone rail bridge that might remind one of a Wordsworth poem. (But, I digress).
At the end of the first mile, I had run a 6:42. This was scarily ahead of my pace. Yet, I did not feel like I was running fast. Normally, when I am running too fast, it feels like I’m running fast. I did not feel like I was running fast – hmmm. Now I’m sure in Zen and the Art of Running (a book, I’m sure must exist) it discusses the wu wei of running. The least effort per step leads to faster times. I really felt I was closer to successful wu wei running than I ever have been. I continued running what felt like not running.
Miles 2 – 4 whizzed by at comfortable sub 7 speeds that I would never have thought of running two months ago. When I watched my Garmin to get to mile 4.5 (an attachment that despite Coach Tim’s urging, I have yet to break the bonds of). Here I moved from wu wei into BEAST MODE. The last mile from 4.4-5.4 I did in under 6:30 and the last 800, I broke 3:00.
Turning into the Sears, I realized they probably weren’t ready for me. So, I started yelling over the crowd of supporters: “Seth! I’m Coming!” I reached the hand off to find no Seth. I continued yelling: “Seth! SETH!” Then out of the Corner of my eye, I caught so a red flash attempting to jump up and grab the slap-bracelet (replacement for baton). Seth was not prepared for me to run so fast and had to fight his way through the crowd to get to me. I handed him the red bracelet and walked through the crowd to high fives from Marc, Aaron and Dan who were congratulating me on my beast mode time.
Normal Jesse: 5 miles – Jimmy Kane 5 miler – 37:25 (7:28/mi)
Beast Mode Jesse – 5.4 Miles – 36:17 (6:43/mi)
(For the Record: Korynn did have her own beast mode at 39 minutes and would have put normal Jesse and the Kings of Beer into a bit of a bind.)
Leg 2: 4.75 Miles – Seth (expected time: 36:48 – 7:45/miles)
Seth finished his best 5k two months ago at 7:30 speed. He followed that up with PR at MDI. Running at his best from those two, Macmillan calculated around 7:45s so that was my estimation. Macmillan and I were wrong:
Normal Seth: 5K – Homeless Coalition 5K – 23:20 (7:30/mi)
Beast Mode Seth: 4.75 miles – 34:50 (7:20/mi)
Leg 3: 2.5 Miles – Aaron (expected time: 18:45 – 7:30/mi)
This was Aaron’s second race since his injured New York Marathon. Putting in 7:30s is what I would expect with his “season” over and this as a wrap up. Once again I was wrong.
Normal Aaron: 5K – An Ras Mor – 23:02 (7:24/mi)
Beast Mode Aaron: 2.5 miles – 18:00 (7:12/mi)
Leg 4: 9.5 Miles – Dan (expected time: 1:11:15 – 7:30/mi)
Dan has had a great past few months. Yet he expected to run 7:45s (since he finished with the Police Academy and no longer has to endure Bobcat Goldthwait but also isn’t forced to run every day); I gave him a conservative estimate of 7:30s – knowing he might actually run 7:15s. Dan and I were quite wrong.
Normal Dan: 15K – Bow Lake Dam 15K – 1:09:38 (7:29/mi)
Beast Mode Dan: 9.5 Miles – 1:06:19 (6:58/mi)
Leg 5: 4.75 Miles – Marc (expected time: 35:37 – 7:30/mi)
While Dan’s improvement has been the most drastic, Marc has probably had the most linear and consistent improvements of any members of the Kings of Beer over the last two years.
Based on his killer Casey’s Halloween run, I expected Marc, a month and a half out from his marathon, to throw down something like 7:30 miles. Once again, MacMillan and I were wrong.
Normal Marc: 4.06 miles – Casey’s Thursday Night Halloween Run – 29:57 (7:22/mi)
Beast Mode Marc: 4.75 miles – 34:00 (7:09/mi)
Kings of Beer finished at 3:10:26 (7:03/mi), which would mean we would still lose a marathon race to Coach Tim and many others; but we would but combined Boston Qualifier. It also won us each a free beer from The Pauls and the Lovely Ladies whom we beat by 8 minutes. We fiished 77th out of 207 and 22nd out of 30 in the Men’s Open.
SRR Shoutouts
Bed Bugs Can’t Stop Us – 2nd in the Men’s Open
Masters of their Own Domain – 1st Men’s Masters
Get Off My Lawn – 2nd Men’s Seniors
En Fuego – 2nd Women’s Open
Geezergirls – 2nd Women’s Veterans
Nuke to a Knife Fight – 1st Coed Open
Can’t Stop Them… - 3rd Coed Masters
Somerville was also the second place club – 12 points behind Gate City.
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