The Mid-Winter Classic was this morning in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. It was a chilly day with temperatures in the high teens/low twenties, but the wind was something fierce. Not much of a factor on the back of the course, the start and the finish were both very chilly and very hard to run through the wind.
Ethan Hemphill set a new course record of 52:45, 16 seconds better than the previous record from two years ago. He ran with Ryan Robitaille through mile 7+, but left him behind in the last 2 miles to win by over a minute. Sheri McCarthy-Piers won with a commanding lead over second place Kendra Hodder, beating her by over 3 minutes in 62:39. Todd Coffin also set a course record, beating teammate Mike Payson‘s masters record by 23 seconds in 54:19. Christine Reaser won the women’s masters race in 66:46.
The race set records in both the number of registrations as well as the number of finishers, which is great news for a very early season race with less than stellar weather for running. There were 660 finishers today. I was 26th overall in 61:32. I did not quite meet my goal of of running negative splits, despite working much harder through the second half of the race.
The volunteers at the race were great. A race like this requires a lot of people to make it happen, and as of the few days before the race there were not nearly enough people committed. Around a half dozen of those who were committed had to call and cancel due to having the flu. The last 3 days before the race, though, plenty of volunteers stepped forward and they did a great job. The race also had a great spread afterwards. There was plenty of water, gatorade, accellerade, bagels, oranges, pizza, banannas and yogurt. The two course records both awarded their winners with a $100 bonus, and the other prizes consisted of head bands. An appropriate prize for a winter race.
(Full Results)
Well done, Blaine! I can imagine any wind in that cold weather was tough? How many negative splits did you do? and what’s your PR for a 10 miler?
Great achievement, Blaine. I can imagine that under these circumstances you are more than happy when passing the finish line.
BTW 61:32 definitely sounds much better than 1:01:32 🙂
My PR for a ten miler is around 56 minutes or so, but I would have to look it up. It might be mid-55s. As for wind in cold weather, it was pretty warm out temperature wise. The wind itself was the only problem.
I usually think of my race times up through 90 with the seconds or minutes rather than the minutes or hours, depending upon the scale. It is easier to do the math in my head if I am planning on 75 seconds of rest or a 65 second repeat or I am going out for a 90 minute jig jog.
I also updated the post a little, since I forgot to mention the great job the volunteers did yesterday and how much food there was at the finish line.