Yup. Another Tuesday in August, another Newton Hill trail race. This was nothing short of brutal: something close to 90-degrees and 70% humidity. Last week’s weather was beautiful and pleasant and I had a decent race. Decent, but not great. I always have an excuse; last weeks was that I did the Anchor Down Ultra on Saturday, so my legs were a lot like concrete and that’s why I didn’t kill the course. The week before was mid-70’s but humid AF, and Week 1 was similar weather to today, but cooler, believe it or not. Hey, it’s August in New England. Kind of like a box of chocolates the weather is.
Pursuant to recent trends, tonight’s crowd was roughly 38 or 39 runners – last week was the exception, but then again it was really, really nice. The other races this month have been about the same crowd regardless.
In keeping with my comparison from last week, it’s pretty plain to see how much the weather affected my race. I mean I’m not a very good (trail) runner in general, so anything less than perfect conditions is going to affect me. I’ve come to that conclusion, that I’m just not that good.
| Mile | Week 4 | Week 3 | Week 2 | Week 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9:36 | 8:56 | 8:42 | 9:19 |
| 2 | 9:04 | 8:22 | 8:16 | 8:56 |
| 3 | 10:21 | 9:56 | 10:17 | 10:06 |
Just all around my worst of the four races this year. Now the caveat: according to my watch I finished 28:17 this week; my official time week 1 was 28:15, so likely a 2-second difference, but the paces are wildly off (Note: the official time turns out to be exactly the same as week 1). That’s because my watch also registered a shorter course this week than week 1. It’s a trail so it’s always approximate, but I’m sure there was some variance and what not. So, the sum total is that Week 4 basically looks like Week 1. Same sort of pacing across the race, similar weather, similar result. If anything I suppose I COULD argue that today was crappier and I was only a couple of seconds worse, but that would be disingenuous.
Kind of a bummer result, but pretty much what I might have bet on. I wanted better but after about .5 mile, I knew tonight wasn’t going to be my night. With a race like this, I think it’s instructive to look at the placement for some kind of idea how the race was. By using that metric, week 2 was my best, and I can certainly say it felt like my best race. So another race series closed out, another summer heading toward completion.
Results:
August 28, 2018: 28:15. 89/90 Degrees, 70% humidity. (20/38)
August 21, 2018: 26:57. High-60’s, beautiful. (28/60)
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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