Trails To Ale 10K

It still escapes me how I had never run Trails to Ale.  I'm always jacked to try a new race, especially one that promises beer at the end.  This year I made sure to hit up the online registration and made a special trip to the MRC so I could get my beer tattoo the day before.  This was the last week in a four week cycle, and my first week in more than a year over eighty miles.  Tired, I was certain my drinking performance would surely outpace my race performance.

Not long after the start.  Thanks Maine Running Photos!

The rain let up in time for the race.  Half mile in I found myself running side by side with the eventual winner, Representative Goode.  Goode, who once told me over dinner that he preferred to be a large fish in a small pond was doing his best to make the most of his trip from Bangor to the big city.

The nice thing, the race featured a significant net elevation drop.  The not so nice thing, three and a half miles around the boulevard in the mud and water.  Even when dry the boulevard is a heart breaking, energy draining, home wrecker.  Two miles in Goode was keeping the pace honest, doing all the work with me holding on.  Finally a little before mile five he took off.

I managed 20 second faster than B2B despite the wheels coming off before mile 5.

As we quickly separately I could hear my college coach in the back of my head with some choice quotes: "People are going to pass you but you can't let everyone pass you!"  Getting dropped has always been an exercise in damage control for me and this day would be no exception as I would lose over twenty seconds in the last mile and half.  Luckily Harmon was in third trying to hold his hernia in so there was no worry of losing second.

FYI - If you stay long enough they just give out the rest of the beers.

To say the Shipyard beer tent was a ray of light shining through bleak skies was not an exaggeration.  As I negotiated with some of my more sensibly drinking friends to use their numbers to go back for thirds, fourths and fifths on beer the sun began to poke through for the first time.  It was the beginning of a long afternoon of drinking and football that would leave me with a real case of the Mondays the next day.

I was time for a much needed down week and then next up is the Maine Marathon weekend!  Looking forward to crushing miles, chugging beers and many a good laugh!  The lesson learned on a muddy 10k: Seadog blueberry beer is no good out of a can, daft only for me please!