Tapleyville 7.1 Mile Race

Sunday, April 19, the day before the Boston Marathon, 270 runners lined up for the First Annual Tapleyville 7.1 Mile Classic. On this day, the sun was shining but the temperature was cool in the high 40's. This race was particularly interesting because it was contained, for the most part, to a packed dirt/gravel bike trail. In addition to the trails, we weaved through suburban neighborhoods before joining the trail again to the finish. I approached this race as more of a hard tempo rather than a race. My goal was to maintain a hard even pace for the entire run.

The race began as most road races do, everyone bunched up for about 1-2 miles. Soon after everyone began stretching out, which made reeling in runners much more difficult. This is one of the hardest moments in a race. It's extremely easy to slow down when there aren't other runners around you helping push you through the hard moments. Long runs and hard workouts improve your ability to maintain pace while in the middle of a race, whether or not their are competitors around you. Over the final 3 miles, I slowly captured the few runners in eye sight, but we stayed close together through the finish.

My final time was 51:15, which is about 7:13 pace per mile. This time was good enough for 22nd overall. As a hard tempo, I am very satisfied with the results.