Though we did indeed grill meat too.
Not meat in the Catholic sense, but meat in a taxinomic sense. Sorry for only having an image of the raw steel-head and scallops--I got too busy while cooking to take any further pictures.
It was a nice day, so we had the AC off and the windows open. A good time to roast coffee and after the oven was free of coffee (it gives off a lot of smoke) some JoJo's to go with dinner.
Mexican Turquesa
Yemen, Mocha Matari
Idaho, JoJo's Vaishali-style.
I wanted to run it this year because I figured that it couldn't possibly be as bad as last year.
It did not start auspiciously; I gave myself two hours to get there, park, pick-up my number & so forth. Google maps gave the route an estimate of one hour, so I figured that I was fine. Traffic said otherwise. As I looked at the temperature gauge, which hovered between 95 and 97 degrees, I half-way hoped I would arrive too late to race. Route 495 was a mixture of stop-and-go and wide-open lanes and I had spent an hour and a half by the time I got off the highway. I now had to find the race, park, pick-up my race number, run back to the car to drop-off my t-shirt and sun glasses and then run to the start. I got to the starting line right before the gun went off.
Some large races have a starting sensor which keeps track of when you cross the starting line and deducts this from the final time. This can be significant. In Boston from a couple of years ago, I started in the middle of the pack and still took over 6 minutes to reach the starting line. This race didn't have a starting sensor and since I came late I was further back in the pack than I would have liked. Between crowds preventing full speed running for the first mile and the time it took to reach the start, I estimate that I lost around two minutes. This translates into 12 seconds per mile for the whole 10-mile race. It was in the low 90's at the start, but there was a little wind and the humidity was much less than last year.
I think I was running in the mid sevens for most of the way. I didn't really go all-out except at the end though. I was up there on my own and didn't want to be in a position where I incapacitated myself. In the last two miles though, a group caught-up with me and I increased my pace to match them. We all, to one degree or another, sped-up in these last couple of miles since we could taste the finish and the temperature had fallen at least 10 degrees. By the last quarter-mile we were all moving pretty fast and there was even some jostling for position in the curves. For some reason this made me loose patience and I went into full sprint mode for the final 200 yards. I left the group I was in behind and passed another half-dozen runners in addition. It is nice to add a little drama at the end for spectators. It was a little irritating though--if I had all this speed at the end, I probably could have run a faster pace for a substantial part of the second half.
I did help the team though:
9. GREATER LOWELL ROAD RUNNERS1:02:51 1:03:57 1:11:33 1:16:42 1:30:56 = 6:05:59
724 Jason Bui 30, 2997 Cody Freihofer 22, 1881 Ken Goodin 55,
2134 David Pecchia 47, 2299 John Ducharme 41
Had I not been there, then the 6th and only other team member's time would have been used. He ran it 19 minutes slower than I did and so this would have knocked us into 12th place. Not to disparage him, he is 71 years old and finished first in his age group.
Last year I was 310th and this year 312th, so I guess the better conditions this year helped everybody, not just me.
Update: Looks as if there were a couple more GLRR's there and we moved up to 7th:
7. GREATER LOWELL ROAD RUNNERS1:02:51 1:03:57 1:08:10 1:11:33 1:16:42 = 5:43:13
724 Jason Bui 30, 2997 Cody Freihofer 22, 762 Fil Faria 45, 1881
Ken Goodin 55, 2134 David Pecchia 47
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