Middletown 10K 2024

Middletown, CT

Sunday, April 7, 2024

USATF-CT 10K Championship, as hosted by Hartford Marathon's Middletown 10K.  This was my second year running this race.  2023 race report here.

My biggest issue with last year's race was running into the back-of-the-pack 5K walkers clogging the left-most side (tangent) of the road at about Mile 4, some of the walkers voicing their unhappiness with the runners coming close to them (as we trying to run some semblance of tangents), and this was going on for at least a mile as we needed to either weave or run very wide to the right.  I wrote in an e-mail to the HMF RD last year to thank him for the race but also bring up this constructive criticism.  I was skeptical, but he did reply and indicate HMF would address this.

While it's usually exciting running a race for the first time, it was also nice coming to this race this year having some experience and first-hand knowledge of both logistics and the race course.  Arrived with over an hour to spare, as I know it's a little walk from public parking to the finish line/bib pick-up, and the race start is several blocks away from that.  Went on a three-mile warmup, before returning to the car to change into race singlet and race shoes.

I'm not sure what a "violater" is, but I parked in
a different lot anyway.

Lined up in about the third row, caught up briefly with both teammates and my frenemy, Brett Stoeffler.  After the national anthem, we were off.  45°F and a 9mph wind out of the north.

Rolling hills, and then a long downhill 
in final mile.

Two (slightly different) loops,
before the downhill to the finish.

Start of this year's race
(From Mohegan Striders Instragram)

First loop:  Slight downhill, before the 50' climb up through the Wesleyan University campus.  I recalled that numerous people passed me left and right last year, and while a few did this year also, I felt like I held my own much better.  Mile 1 5:55.  OK, not bad for a net uphill mile.

Second mile put us onto Long Lane, along athletic fields.  This is the section last year where walkers clogged up the road (on our second loop at end of Mile 4).  I noticed signs here "Walkers keep right".  OK, so HMF did do something about the walker issue, but color me skeptical until I see them actually read and adhere to the signs.  Just up ahead, I saw and caught up to teammate Jared Dybas.  I called out to him to come with me, and he did.  There was a water stop as we were coming up on Mile 2, and perhaps sensing that none of the faster runners were taking water, the water stop volunteers kept pushing further and further out into the road, prompting Jared to call out, "you don't need to come out so far into the road".  It was mildly annoying as it forced us slightly wider than we wanted to go, but not much of an issue.  Mile 2 split 5:49.

Mile 3 took us up to and past the start line.  I went ahead of Jared on a downhill and he caught back up to me on the next hill climb.  This was heading north, where I would be concerned about the headwind, but it really wasn't that bad; more of a slight breeze.  9mph winds today vs 15mph last year.  It was in this section last year that Brett caught and passed me.  I expected him again, but didn't see him.  Mile 3 split 5:53.

Second loop:  Mile 4 was uneventful with the only thing I recall was that I was back to running as an island with no one immediately ahead of me and not hearing anyone immediately behind me.  I'm guessing Jared dropped off.  I reminded myself that Mile 4 and Mile 5 is where I slowed last year, and pushed my myself to keep the pace faster.  Mile 4 split 5:55.  Happy to see that!

The end of Mile 4 was where we ran into the back of the walkers again.  But lo and behold, they're not in the way!  Awesome!  They truly kept to the right lane of the road (this is a closed course) leaving runners to run the tangents, as we have two 90-degree left turns coming up.  Not sure if due to this clear path or trying to hold off Brett (where is he?), but my Mile 5 split was a 5:57, faster by ten full seconds over last year.

Sixth and final mile to go!  A 40' climb followed by a 110' drop to the finish.  Unfortunately it was on this hill climb that Brett caught and passed me.  He even called out, "Let's go, Jeff!" and I sure tried to go with him.  From my Strava post, it looks like I was running in the 5:20s for most of the downhill, but it wasn't quite enough, as I crossed the finish line just eight seconds behind Brett.

Just before finish
(From Mohegan Striders FB)

Final result:  36:45, 17th out of 389 overall, 2nd of 16 in age group.  Full results here.

Super happy with this effort.  This is my fastest time ever on a certified 10K course, so I'm going to designate this as my 10K PR going forward, with some relevant background and notes:

• I had previously listed my 10K PR at 36:22 from the now defunct Christmas 10K in Newport in 2012.  However, besides not being certified, this is (was) most certainly a short course.  In my multiple iterations of running this race, I consistently recorded either 6.14 or 6.15 miles, and the race was sometimes referred to as the "Christmas Almost 10K".
• I'll asterisk this new result as being "not record eligible" as it exceeds the World Athletics standard of more than 1 meter drop per 1 kilometer of distance.

So I ran for a team, in the male "grandmasters" (M50-59) division.  How did the team do?

Pretty well!  For the second race in a row, we won the Male Grand Masters
division!

USATF-CT Age Graded Results so far in 2024:
(NH5K = New Haven 5K, M10K = Middletown 10K)
If I can toot my own horn for a moment, out of the 172 USATF-CT registered
runners thus far in the series, from an age-graded perspective, 
I'm not doing too shabby!  Really happy with this and the race overall!