Super Mario Day

photos courtesy Lee D

You read it here first: my spies on the west coast captured these photos of Cipo out training with his new Rock and Republic team. Super Mario reportedly was nearly cited by the CHP for running a red light, but local cyclists intervened and were like "Dude, you can't give him a ticket, he's freaking world champion!"

In other Mario news, the the Raynham Frostbite 15k was won yesterday by the other Super Mario. The former Stonehill All-American blitzed the course with a time of 48:40 (5:13/mile pace) in what were not exactly PR conditions. When I woke up the temps were a balmy 28 degrees, but by race time at 9:20 am the mercury had plummeted to the low 20's as a constant gale blew in from the north. At least the sun was shining.

My plan was to start off easy, running 6:30's until halfway, and then see what I had. With all the snow my running training has been very inconsistent. I know my fitness has dropped quite a bit since peaking in early December, with the end of 'cross races for workouts, and ten day break from running, concurrent with a full three weeks off the bike after a second ass surgery. I'm still lighter than I was during last summer's race season, but I've managed to pack on about three pounds, almost all of it in an unsightly little man-fupa. Truly the stuff champions are made of. Still though, I felt pretty good when warming up (having a car with heat helps!), so of course, as usual, my plan went out the window when the siren went off to start the race.

There were something like 380 starters. I had lined up with Tom V about third row in order to hold back. We had a pure tailwind for the first 5k, and also this stretch has no hills, in fact the Polar data revealed the slightest of downgrades (-.4%). The first mile took 6:06, just cruising. I missed a few miles markers, but later on I was able to extrapolate enough data to break the race into three 5k segments. The first was 19:07 with an average HR of 159. The middle third I drafted on the heels of a few others as there was some serious wind going through the pig farm section. This was the slowest, 19:44, with an HR average of 165, right near LT. The final third began with a surge up the course's only real hill, where I dropped my three companions. This pushed the HR over 170, where it stayed the rest of the way during this 5k split of 19:16 for a finish time of 58:18 (6:17/mile pace), 21st overall, 4th in my age group. Nelson and Schaad totally smoked me this race, finishing over two minutes ahead. I may not have made myself suffer quite as much as some of my PR races, but the overall average HR of 165 tells me I wasn't exactly taking it easy, so I know my fitness is down.

Next week's race will be the longest run of my life, so I'm not warming up and just running it for training. Then I'll focus on the Paddy Kelly and the Foxboro 10 mile. After that, no plans at this time. Thanks for reading.