Race Report: Jan 5-6 Weekend
Jan 6, 2013
A good number of LRRCers headed across the wide Susquehanna River for the first race of 2013, the Accomac 8K (4.97 miles), which is part of the York Winter Series. Some of the familiar faces were Bill Doherty, Mark & Rose Ward, Lynn Marquez, Leo Lutz, Pete Barber, Evan Sandt, and Sil Simpson.
The course is flat, but the wind kicked up just as the race started, so the race felt fairly challenging. Afterwards, two women with those GPS things on their arms said that the course was actually 5.3 miles. I thought that it seemed a little long, but not that far. In fact, if it were 5.3 miles, then my 38:38 would have been an excellent time for me, so I drove the course after everybody left. According to my car odometer, the course was longer than 4.97, but just a little. My odometer gives readings only in tenths, so I can't be exact, but I'd say that the course is about 5.05 miles. That makes my time slightly less mediocre, but hardly spectacular.
Next week's feature race is the Shiver by The River 10K/5K in Reading, and the early weather forecast says that we may be enjoying a temperature near 50˚ at race time. That's certainly a great motivation to get out and race in the middle of January.
Sil
Race Report: Dec 1-2 Weekend
Dec 3, 2012
A contingent of LRRCers crossed the wide Susquehanna River yesterday for the Spring Valley 4-Miler, part of the York Winter Series. Among the Lancaster dignitaries in attendance were Missy Baker, Paul Swarm, Gary Stern, Steve Farrah, Bill Doherty, Rose and Mark Ward, and Sil Simpson.
As 4-milers go, this was the toughest that I've ever run, and the last mile was probably the toughest last mile that I've ever run in a race. In The Telltale Heart, Poe wrote of a person's hand that moved so slowly that the eye could detect no motion, and that's probably what anyone who saw me trying to get up the last hill thought about me.
How hilly was it? Well, the big hill on the Ox-Trot course would have seemed like a flat part of the Spring Valley course.
But it was a beautiful day for running uphill, and the turnout was large.
This weekend offers the Jingle Bell in Lancaster and the Shiver By The River 10K/5K in Reading. There's no bad weather in the forecast, so enjoy a race or a run this weekend.
Sil
Race Report: Thanksgiving
Nov 23, 2012
Thanksgiving was a busy race day in Lancaster county, with events in Denver, Millersville, and Ephrata. I chose the 5K in Denver, which drew almost 500 runners and walkers in its first year. To my pleasant surprise, it turned out to be a cross-country race, and for the first time in memory, I had the excitement of racing over frost-covered grass. Apparently, it's not the fastest running surface because the winning time was only 18:20.
Overall, this was an excellent event, and I will definitely do it again next year because I was able to finish the race and still get to Long's Park for some of the Fowl Run.
Right now, however, I am feeling rather low and questioning my worth as a human being because I wasn't at Park City at 4 AM to buy all sorts of worthless junk and run up crushing credit card debt.
Nothing is more painful to me than watching the live TV reports on all the happy shoppers and realizing that I'm not one of them. Guess I better go out and run a few miles to justify my existence.
Sil
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