Running with Eric

On Wednesday I ran my third race of the year at Mendon Ponds Park. While I have now done a number of runs in this park it was my first time on this particular course, and I finished the unknown distance in 48:44. This was good enough to put me in 74th place and the top 29th percentile.

Given that this was the final race in the Dirt Cheap racing series, there is also a set of overall standings for the series. I don’t quite understand the formula that they are using for these standings, but I have finished 75th overall.

My next race is the Rochester Marathon where (despite not having a flat course) I will be trying to improve upon my time from the Buffalo Marathon in the spring.

Yesterday I returned to trail racing by running the 12 mile Mendon Mauler at Mendon Ponds Park. The race consisted of three four-mile loops and is by far the longest distance that I have ever ran on trails.

It was a rough course of almost all hills, and even required dodging turtles and horses. I started off fairly well, but by the end I was pretty worn out. This can be seen in my lap times of 46, 47, and 56. I finished with an overall time of 2:31:18 which was good enough for 49th place.

I will be doing a shorter trail race next Wednesday as part of the Dirt Cheap series. My goal is to finish under 44 minutes to beat my previous best time at Lucien Morin Park.

Yesterday I finished the first race of the season, completing 4.8ish miles worth of hills and mud in 51 minutes and 22 seconds. This is almost six minutes quicker than the last trail race I ran at Mendon Ponds park.

While the full selection of trails was not exactly identical, the times of the top runners actually seem to indicate that last night’s course was slightly more difficult. Overall I was pretty happy with my result, finishing in the top 35th percentile (versus the 63rd percentile in July 2013).