Saturday Long Run & A Day of Sport

Time: 122:43
Distance: 17.23 miles
Pace: 7:07
Map

I was invited to run out at McAlpine with a group of Charlotte Running Club members. Originally I had planned to start from the Old Bell entrance, but as I was driving over I made a last minute decision to start at the Main entrance. I try to avoid the Main parking lot as much as possible since Meagan's car was broken into this winter.

When I arrived I was delighted to see about a dozen other cars, half of which belonged to the CRC group. Caitlin was leading this excursion as part of her marathon training program. I was content to sit well off the back of the pack for the first mile simply allowing the bod to warm up. The 6:30 am start time is much earlier than I'm used to and I had to start with a shuffle. Ten minutes into the run I was happy to join the group up front that contained Paul, Spada, Compton, Beigay and a couple others. It was great fun chatting with Spada about track legends like Daniel Komen, Noah Ngeny, El G and Bob Kennedy.

Later in the run Beigay took us on some single track near the Boyce parking lot that I didn't know existed. The trail might have lasted for 1k, but it was cool while it lasted. When we hit the start of the Footlocker course around 11 miles a few people called it quits while the rest of us ventured on. We spotted a fit looking old dude named Tom that Spada knew and tried to close the gap over several miles. The pace kept getting quicker until we took a left and he went right. With about 5 miles to run the pace had dipped into the mid-6:30s and Ms. Chrisman was pushing the effort. I started feeling really smooth just before heading up the hill and decided to open things up. I split 6:10, 5:52 and 5:43 for the final miles. It was a good way to close out the run.

Splits:
8:04, 7:11, 7:33, 7:37, 7:43, 7:18, 7:12, 8:27, 7:45, 7:05, 7:05, 6:59, 6:49, 6:39, 6:10, 5:52, 5:43

Afterward, a group of us decided to have brunch at Zada Jane's which is always a treat. However, it couldn't compare to the rest of my day that included watching Germany blow out Argentina, the Prologue of Le Tour, Spain inch past Paraguay and finally the Pre Classic. It was a great day for sport! The coverage of the Pre Classic was miserable at best because the commentators didn't tell a story and missed the real highlights of the day which had Phoebe Wright running 1:58 and Andrew Wheating dropping a 3:51 mile. Ryan Fenton of Flotrack has a pretty good rant about NBC's shit coverage of the meet.

The day only continued to get better over at Nick and Jenn Frank's house where they had a cookout celebrating the construction of their deck. Meagan and I got to hang out with some pretty cool people who are some of Charlotte's most committed runners and triathletes.