The running club in a neighboring city – The Highland City Striders, which sounds like it could be one of those rival clubs in a redux of “West Side Story” with HCS playing the role of the Sharks and my club CMS playing the role of the Jets…or vice-versa, it doesn’t really matter – hosts a few races each year as does my club. They run the “Running with the Wolves” 10k, where I hit my 10k PR last year, and they run this 10-Miler along with a companion race, the “Tough 10-Mile Turkey Trot” at Thanksgiving – it’s the same course, but rebranded for the time of year…and perhaps to allow for continued gratuitous alliteration.
The entry fee is 15 canned goods for donation to the local food pantry. So if getting 10-miles on the odometer early on the morning of Labor Day doesn’t do it for you, perhaps the going out of your way to help someone else in need may.
Either way it’s a good thing. I’ve run this two other times – both as the Tough 10-Mile Turkey Trot – and have been eaten up by the “Hosmer Hill” both times. As the race director Mark Vital – an old colleague back in the distant pass – announced at the first time I ran this course, “You may feel like you’re going to get a PR <personal record> as you hit Mile 7…forget it. You aren’t.”
As you come around Mile 7.5 or so, near the memorial beach, it comes into full view. The course is mostly downhill for the first 7 miles or so, but man when you hit 7.6, there it is. It may as well be Mt. Everest. And you run up, hit the crest…and look up. There’s still more to go. It’s ridiculous.
Even knowing that, I did the course again. I haven’t been running very long lately – I mean, I’ve been consistently getting 6, 7, 8 miles – sometimes 9 – but haven’t run long since the weekend I did the Kelley Half Marathon and the ultra trail race, and neither of which was a great time. With this being a long weekend, I took advantage of the situation and ran long on Saturday – 13 miles – followed by my longest run in a long time right after my longest run in a long time on Sunday – 20 miles. Today I wasn’t sure it wasn’t going to go sideways and be a complete train wreck, but I brought my canned goods and registered anyway. My legs felt rather stone-like, but a good number of my favorite people were there to run and since I’ve been commuting to work, I’ve not seen many of them so it was super important of me to be sure I connected with them.
As it happened, and perhaps because I don’t run too many 10-mile races, I came *THIS* close to a PR – foiled really only by the untied shoelace at mile 3. The 20 seconds or so there cost me just enough time, although I can point to more than a few points at which I could have made up time.
It was a good run today, and it gives me some confidence I was lacking heading into this month of racing.
Results 1:22:24
10-Miler History
10-Miler History
| Mattapoisett 10-Miler, Mattapoisett MA | 11/10/2017 | 1:22:08 |
| Laborious Labor Day 10-Miler Marlborough MA | 9/2/2019 | 1:22:24 |
| Newport 10 Miler, Newport RI | 6/3/2018 | 1:25:32 |
| Black Cat 10M, Salem MA | 3/11/2017 | 1:25:41 |
| Newport 10 Miler, Newport RI | 6/4/2017 | 1:26:27 |
| Tough 10 Mile Turkey Trot Marlborough MA | 11/26/2017 | 1:28:56 |
| Tough 10 Mile Turkey Trot Marlborough MA | 11/27/2016 | 1:30:26 |
Mo's Marketplace 
One thought on “2019 Race Recap #20: Laborious Labor Day 10-Miler”