Thanks for contributing this report, Doug!
Race report, Doug Steedman
Norcal-10, Redding, CA. Mar 6th, 2010. 10 miles. First race in PA “Long” series for 2010.
Weather: sunny, unexpectedly warm. 65 ?
Drove up there with Jose Friday afternoon. Aggie web page said that we had full teams for Open (men and women) and Masters. Checked internet on arrival, email from Tom Cushman, who says he’s sick and will be no show. Oops, no masters team (we had exactly 5 guys on the list).
Race morning dawns fine (none of the predicted rain). Before the race, I saw two, not five open men. So another Aggie team bites the dust. But then saw Carlos Siqueiros, Sr. so the masters team is back on track.
Race started at 10am. Seemed like a nice morning for racing, but it got noticeably warm as the race went on, and I ended up feeling quite thirsty and taking water at every stop.
Last year I went out conservatively and reverse split the race in 63:24 (roughly 32:00, 31:24). This year I really had no idea where I was fitness or pace wise, so just did as I usually do and went out too fast. First mile, 5:54, oops. I had thought I was being conservative and had set out quite a ways behind the main pack of seniors, including fellow Ags Mike Galligan and Roger Dix, also Jose. But they went out too fast also. I think 5:40-ish.
So I backed off a bit, felt pretty good, even over the steep-ish hill that you do one way at 3.5 and back over at 6.5 miles (race is an out and back except you go one way around a few residential blocks in the middle). Went by Jose and Roger on the hill, and didn’t expect to see either of them again. I did see Dennis Kurtis from WVJS, one of the stalwarts of the PA seniors, up ahead and apparently coming back to me (but slowly).
I hit halfway in 31:20, about 6:16 pace. Faster than last year.
A bit past half way, an Aggie woman went by me looking strong (turned out to be Kim Conley, 2nd in US winter nationals XC). Then a bit later (about 7) I heard someone coming up very strong from behind – turned out to be Jose. He said that now he knew he could finish he was ready to start running hard. He said he was targeting on catching “that fast Aggie woman”, but I pointed out that she was going away from both of us. I suggested Dennis as a target, and he said “he’s in the bag!”. Well for Jose he was, but unfortunately at some point Dennis stopped coming back towards me, and I ended up not getting any closer than about 50m.
In the second half I did still feel fairly smooth, form didn’t go totally to pot, but I was somewhat maxed pace-wise. I did manage to find something with about 300 to go, and went past a group of 3. I hoped that an aggressive move would do the trick, but one of the 3 gave chase, and I had no choice but to keep going hard all the way through the line.
Finished in 63:35, 11s slower than 2009 (and roughly the reverse of last year in terms of the two halves).
I was no better than 9th senior – quite impressive depth in the field. And one of the prominent seniors didn’t run. So I think my days of being comp’ed are over!
Senior finishers ahead of me: Dwight Smith, Tim O’Rourke, Thom Trimble, Tom Bernhard, Jeff Teeters, Brian Davis , Mike Galligan, Dennis Kurtis.
Aggies won both the Open men’s race (Sergio Reyes) and the Open women’s race (48-year old Linda Smith who beat all but one male masters in an American record of 57:09).
Doug