This week was a little different weather wise from last. Today wasn’t quite as hot, but my goodness it was humid; it must’ve been like 1000% humidity and it was total swamp weather. Gross. I sweat like a pig any way, never mind when the air is essentially water. I look like someone has dumped water over my head.
Fact is the it rained most of the day – at various intervals it misted, poured, stopped, poured…just one of those days – but by about 5:30 PM it had stopped for good. BUT the humidididididity. Holy smokes.
The rain probably tamped down attendance – it certainly seemed like it, but there were maybe 38 runners this evening and 39 last week so perhaps it was just perception. Not bad, really, for a Tuesday evening race without adding in the nasty conditions. Since it’s a trail race, rain does have a deleterious effect on the track and with the rain the park festivities were canceled (no band, vendor tents and such) so perhaps it was just the lack of an event going on around the race that made the race seem smaller.
They’ve been running this race since August 2003 – 15 years of Tuesday night trail races…in Massachusetts’ second largest city (and alternately, between Providence RI, New England’s second largest depending on population – it seems to go back and forth). I think it’s pretty cool that you can run a trail race in the middle of a city.
371′ of gain, up and around the trails behind Doherty High School. Kinda muddy, wet. To be sure, I had my opportunities – I’m sure I could have pushed myself harder, but didn’t. There were a few times I was surprised at the pace my watch was recording, figuring it was glitchy or something. That last mile was slower than I would have thought, so perhaps it was glitchy, but I know there was one pretty significantly large hill that it felt like was forever and I know it slowed me down.
Overall, I generally felt pretty good about this race on this evening. I didn’t kill it, but it didn’t kill me and I could definitely see improvement over last week. Last but not least I got to talk to a friend of mine who is running the Anchor Down Ultra on Friday with his son – such a great experience and I’m so happy to be a part of that.
Relive ‘Evening Aug 14th’
August 14, 2018: 27:13. Mid-70’s, 1000% humidity, and generally rainy most of the day. (17/39)
August 7, 2018: 28:15 82 degrees, and swampy humid (20/39)
August 22, 2017: 30:21 Clear, muggy and 82 degrees. (27/47)
August 15, 2017: 29:56 Mostly clear and 72 degrees (37/49)
August 8, 2017: 32:52 Clear and 72 degrees. (39/46)
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