Boom Goes the Dynamite!: Casey's (4/26/11)

Race:  Casey's (World Famous - in Somerville) Thursday Night Run
Location: East Somerville, MA
Distance: 4.06 Miles
Goal Time: 25:37
Actual Time: 26:10

As I charged up the hill in the first mile, Bradley and a new guy followed me up.  Bradley commented: "This is an interesting taper tactic."

From June 2010 until January of this year, my record had held at 27:42.  Several times since then I had came close to the record.  I ran anywhere from 27:45 (ugh) to 28:10 in my attempts to break it.  This January I went for it and finally smashed that June 2010 time by nearly 30 seconds with a 27:19.

That record stood for a mere month however.  On February 9th I beat that record by almost a minute and a half.

Since then I haven't made a real run at it.  Well, I figured with 10 days left to go before my marathon was the perfect time to go after my Casey's (World Famous - in Somerville) Thursday Night Run Personal Record.

The first mile (up and over Winter Hill) I put in about 5 seconds faster than I wanted - 6:55.  Bradley, John W., and new guy were still together here.  The second mile was a good strong 6:10.  New guy was now getting comfortable (and probably antsy since he was pretty quick).  At around 2.5, Bradley and I gave him directions and he was gone disappearing into the darkness on Lowell Street.

I kept up with Bradley up until the two hills on Lowell.  Here I tried to push myself through and knew I would have the downhill to catch him.  I slowly was pulling Bradley back and well on my way with a chance to beat 25:44.

Then: BOOM! Goes the Dynamite!  I got caught at the very last red light! Now with a quarter mile to finish in 40 seconds - I jogged it in for my SECOND fastest Casey's.

Bradley pulled off a PR (~25:45) - so some good came of the run.