August 24 - Annapolis 10-Mile (101 miles/week)

AM: Annapolis 10-Mile, 55:28, 1st overall, 17 miles

I had to shake out the cobwebs this morning on account of the 5 AM wakeup call. I took me a while to get going, but spirits were high.

I drove out with Patrick (who was also running), Valerie and John. We met both Valerie's parents and Bain there as well (Valerie's mom ran it as well). During the warmup, I could already tell the break from last year's humidity was not to be, since I was pouring with sweat by the time we finished. Oh well.

At the start, I did not jump out in front by any means. I deliberately took it out faster (than last year, anyway....5:11, 5:17, 5:25), because after about 4 miles, there are some hellacious hills, including the Severn River Bridge. I wanted some time in the bank. Last year, when I won this same race, I took the lead at a half mile and never looked back. This time, I tried the same move, only to hear footsteps right behind me, making me nervous.

Through about 2.5 miles, there was still a pack of guys breathing down my neck (I got a good spot on them running down Main Street in Annapolis, glancing at their reflections in the storefront windows). Aside from Bain, one guy in that pack was Kent Werner, a guy we race against fairly regularly; he has beaten me before and finished right behind me last year at the A-10. I was starting to suspect that this could be an all-out battle over every single hill until the finish.

If I had any chance to put it away early, I needed some breathing room by the time I crossed the bridge for the first time, because once the course goes into the back neighborhoods of Annapolis, there are a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns. So, using "cross country-style tactics," I tried to drop everyone to the point where I'd disappear behind the turns: it's hard to catch what you can't see. At 3-3.5 miles, I couldn't hear footsteps anymore, and glancing up the bridge at the right-hand turn at the bottom, I could see that I had a comfortable but by no means insurmountable 75-meter lead. At this point, I just took one hill at a time and ran the tangents, checking behind me at the sharper turns. Mile 5 must have been short, because I saw a 5:09 (quicker than my opening mile), and while it includes the downhill portion of the bridge, it has a challenging uphill as well. Either way, I could already tell that I was running faster than last year.

Between mile 6 and 7, there is a 180-degree turn where you run down a long hill, turn around, and immediately climb back up. This is also a good place to see where your competitors are, and to my surprise, I saw a lot more people coming down the hill than I anticipated...a group of at least five. Sure, this was the first time in a while that any of those guys had seen me or I had seen them, but they were only 20+ seconds back, meaning that if I f***ed up in the last miles, it was my race to lose.

It was not to be. I told myself that everyone was probably equally as uncomfortable, especially if they didn't hang with me earlier going over the Severn River bridge the first time. I relaxed an tried to hold pace. It's hard to say exactly how well because I'm sure some mile markers were off...or maybe I just wasn't consistent at all. As I climbed the ascent of the bridge again, runners crossing it the first time were cheering for me, so I listened for them to cheer on the runners behind me. I heard nothing, so right at about 8.5 miles, I felt safer. When I started to hear comments like, "lots of room...you almost have it," that was more reassuring.

I finished in 55:28, which was more than 1:15 better than last year. It was good that I ran faster today because had I run last year's time, I would have only been 5th. My margin of ~30 seconds was the same as last year, though the field was definitely deeper this year.

The only casualty today was Murphy, whose stomach was bothering him. He got caught in the line at the bathroom as the race started, so he got a late start and was never given a fighting chance: that was a tough and unfortunate break. Bain looked good, running a course PR and coming in 5th. He was also only in his trainers, not racing flats, because he said his foot had been acting up. I had some GI issues after the race, but I've more or less accepted that condition as a permanent drawback of warm-weather racing for me, since it's been happening all summer.

After brunch with Patrick and John in Annapolis, we came back home and took an out-cold 90-minute nap. Credit also to Valerie for the photo of the finish.

• Full Race Results.

• Story from the Annapolis Capital