Jones 10

This Sunday marked my third visit in four years to the Jones Group 10 Mile race in Amherst, MA. I rolled westward with Kevin and Jose through a mixture of rain and snowfall, but there was minimal precipitation when we arrived around 11:30. We arrived a tad early for a change and it was exciting to see strong runners arriving in droves from all over northern New England. Clearly the forecast of potentially a foot of snow hadn't phased the grittiest of runners in the area.

I warmed up with most of the Whirlaway Open Team members and was excessively warm wearing two layers. Returning to the school, I decided to shed my base layer and opted to wear only a singlet and shorts. This ended up being a monumental mistake. Making my way outside to do some last-minute warming up, I saw it had begun to rain. I was chilly, but figured I'd be fine. What I hadn't counted on was consistent rain and heavy wet snowfall in combination with steady wind over much of the course. By mile 2 I was freezing and I was mad at myself for the rookie mistake! Oh well, nothing to do but move forward as best I could.

Newbould and I had planned to attack the race conservatively and move hard once over the big hills in miles 3 and 4. I got through 4 miles intact, maybe 5-7 seconds back from Newbould, but my form had basically fallen apart. My chest and arms were completely numb and I was hunched forward and over-striding. From a performance standpoint, it really hurt me that I couldn't feel anything and finding a good rhythm seemed impossible. I trudged on and eventually got going, but mile 5 was easily my weakest mile on the day. During mile 5 the classic side-stitch set in hard I was slowly getting dropped by the guys ahead of me. Approaching the downhill miles in 6 and 7, I was looking to move up and to try to help Brandon who was falling off his group and we were only a mere 10 or so seconds apart. Trying to forge the gap with the stitch in my side made things worse. I struggled to get a full breath and swore to myself as I reached up under my rib cage to try to force the thing out.

Later on I got passed by one guy moving well (Nick Cooper) and I clung onto him as I felt the presence of another runner who I later learned to be Greg Hammett. There was a short little hill and I refused to give ground, charging the hill with shorter strides and a shallow but fast breathing pattern... and, eureka! Sweet relief that my race wasn't going to fall apart as the stitch subsided. I got into a good groove soon after and gave chase to the guy who had passed me (Nick Cooper). The final hills late in miles 9 and basically all of 10 were facing me and I gritted my teeth and caught Nick but couldn't pass. He and I pressed on and caught Girma who had fallen away from Brandon and the three of us entered the final loop around the parking lot. They were in a dogfight kicking towards home and I finished in tow a few seconds back. Glad to be done and with a new PR of 54:32, I cheered teammates and friends as they came in towards the finish. Tons of great performances and the usual jokes and congrats characterizing the NE road race scene were exchanged.

I cooled down with Kevin, Brandon, Jose, Blake, Ferenc, MacKnight and a few others. MacKnight ran a killer race, by the way. It was crazy the way he went out conservatively (with me at the mile) and gobbled up every runner but two over the remaining 9 miles. Team Whirlaway had a solid showing all around. The Open Team narrowly missed third place. I won't forget the guys who ran away from me mid-race. I also won't forget the potential in our 3,4,5,6,7 runners as several of them are just getting back into serious training. Optimistic about our chances as a team at future races.

My sense is the recovery from this effort won't be nearly as long as the period after Boston Prep... I'm not really sore Monday morning as I write this. My only concern is it's painful to breathe deeply and the area where I had the stitch is sore to the touch. Easy running, stretching, and core work through Wednesday and I'll reevaluate from there.


First time I've worn a watch for this race. Garmin came out to 54:12 at 10, 54:36 for 10.08. Looking at the splits below, I have a feeling mile 9 was not quite a 5:16 considering that a man at mile 8 yelled 43:20, meaning that I ran 11:12 for the last 2 miles according to the official clock. Garmin had me at 10:49 for the last 2 which seems unlikely. Splits here:


5:25
5:03
5:34
5:50
5:38
5:17
5:17
5:19
5:16
5:33