westport summer series, 6.85 miler: race report

when i took a look at my race history, i was surprised to find that this summer series 6.85 miler was my first race back in westport since the labor day 10 miler in 2005! i've been to compo beach many times - this was pat's hometown beach - and i ran my first westport race at this very beach, the minute man 5 miler, in 2001! while i wasn't necessarily ready to race because of a lingering summer chest cold, i was happy to revisit compo beach! the weather was spectacular, cool and low humidity - one of the best running days of the summer.

the turnout for this race was large. besides emmy, rob, and don - each of whom i knew would be there - we saw dawn, gail, joe, michael (my hometown neighbor), and jim, among others. on the walk over to registration, i had the pleasure to met roy (who recognized me from this blog). sign up has no bibs, no chips (nothing, as a matter of fact). as runners cross the finish, each is handed a pre-numbered popsicle stick! then, volunteers manually record the finisher info on clipboards. amazingly, the system works beautifully in practice!

at the start, emmy took off and eventually finished 4th overall. she actually won this particular race in 2006. i ran most of the initial loop of the beach with rob, then he took off when we left the beach. i ran a portion of the second mile with roy, until i stopped to catch my breath a the start of mile three. labored breathing is a rare thing in my race world - so it was disconcerting to stop for that reason. it last for less than a minute, and i was right back in business. i walked the hill at mile 3.5 - but that was planned. i picked up the pace for the remaining miles back to the beach.

here are my race splits:

15:09 (miles 1 &2)
8:27 23:36
9:19 32:55
8:18 41:13
8:01 49:14
6:08 55:23 (0.85 mile)

8:09 pace

post-race, on the beach, was fun. both rob and emmy went for a dip. and i played lifeguard while the race results were tabulated. emmy won a coveted race tee shirt - which are given out as overall and age group awards.

it's funny how schedules can work. i hadn't been able to run a westport race since 2005. now, after that long absence, i'll probably run 2 in this month (the upcoming labor day 10 miler)!

check out the race photos.
check out emmy's race report.