– 5K and 10K, 1/1/19 – Writeup by Linda Desjardins.
There is a core of Striders who just seem to have a thing about this Lowell Race and we keep meeting up each New Year’s. This year, thankfully, it wasn’t 8 degrees with -16 windchills. It was more like 50 and there were 50-60 mph winds. The 5K course is like a long, skinny triangle. The road we start and finish on is about .3 and the rest is out and back with the hairpin turn coming at 1.5. That was all tailwind. The rest? Header all the way back to the starting road and repeat it for the 10K with a little added neighborhood run that was supposed to add another tenth for 6.2 though everyone’s GPS said it added .2. Oh well…I mentally take off 10 seconds per mile for the 10K runners.
The 5K racers were Maureen Kelly and Denise Young who did a great job, Maureen crossing just over 33 minutes and Denise was 7 minutes behind her.
The 10K racers were Mariellen Hayward, the first of the three coming in at a smidgen over one hour (but remember that extra tenth of a mile!), Annajean McMahon 3 minutes later and they were 6th and 8th in their age group of 19 women. Great running. Linda Desjardins crossed the finish line 2.5 minutes after Annajean in 1:05:37 which meant an age group first for her. The second woman over 70 finished 18 minutes later.
We worked our behinds off running against that wind. It really felt great to cross the finish line and not have to thaw out frozen body parts!
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