Two great runs this weekend:
On Saturday I did Bryn Mawr Running Club's Winter Prediction Run. Every Wednesday night during the Spring, Summer and Fall BMRC has club runs on a course known as the Tennis Loop. Runners can choose five, seven or ten miles. Several times a year the club makes these runs a prediction run - each runner picks a finish time and the winner is the runner closest to their predicted time. Because of safety concerns when Daylight Savings ends so does the Tennis Loop, but each December the club has the prediction run on Satruday morning. Entrance fee is an unwrapped toy and the club also encourages a shoe turn in. Toys and shoes are given to a local charity.
This was the first Tennis Loop Run since the Morris Avenue bridge linking Lancaster Avenue and Montgomery Avenue was closed for repairs. This means an alteration of course which of course affected everyone's prediction time. (I actually won, quite by fluke, a prediction run this year - but my prediction times have gotten better simply because I know the route well. New routing, new timing.)
So off I went pacing myself with various club members and chatting. About four miles into the course I am running alone but following a woman I have frequently finished with - I catch up with her and we run the last part together - I opinioned that I was going too fast for my prediction and with that she slows down. I am thinking jeez why is she listening to me!!! I keep going and my finish is about thirty seconds too fast - in this race that's a huge gap. But it was a fun run on a beautiful morning.
Sunday was the Reindeer Romp. This race follows a course I laid out nine years ago. This year I was on the race committee. Last year we had a huge crowd and one of the turnarounds was overly congestion. This year we came up with the idea of running part of the course backwards and it worked out great (thanks to some enegetic course marshals).
The course itself uses a busway - this is a former trolley car route that was paved over in the 1970's and is use only for SEPTA buses . Since the buses don't run on Sundays it makes a perfect race route. The start went smoothly even with a record number of runners (about 650 and another 200 walkers). The course is downhill, uphill, downhill, uphill. I went out very fast, probably too fast. I struggled a bit on the uphill and then was overly hesitant on the downhill. The finish is a half mile uphill that gets steeper as you close in on the finish. I had wanted to finish under 24 but just missed it probably because I started a little too far back. Still pleased with the race (I ended up third in my new age group).
After my race I helped with collecting the results - the timer was using barcodes and it was interesting to see how that worked (did you know you can't barcode single digits) and how the timer is married to finishers list. I also got my photo with Santa Claus. This was a very good Claus although he could use a good pair of black boots.
Now it's time for my Christmas rest. I will do some evening runs just to see the Christmas lights but not hard or long runs until the New Year.
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