10 years ago (December 2015): I only raced twice during this month as I began to think about racing on the indoor track. I was coaching at Gate City Striders at the time and signed on with a GCS 50+ team for a leg of the Mill Cities relay (12/06/15). As a change of pace for me, I got to run the anchor leg. This was a relatively fast 4.75 mile leg that had just one hill heading from Methuen into Lawrence. I managed a surprisingly fast 27:31 (5:47 pace). Our team topped the category by 5 minutes over the Winner’s Circle.
I had three second place finishes during the year but had yet to break through and get a win. It looked like my winning streak (at least one win every year since 1979) was in jeopardy. The Winner’s Circle “Santa’s Toy Trot” would be my final chance (12/13/15) to get a win. The race has an interesting format that it is a 2 mile loop and you can choose to stop at 2, 4, or 6 miles. My plan was to do either 2 or 4 miles and hopefully sneak out a win as faster runners went longer distances. I went out in 5th place, but you don’t know who is running what distance. I was trailing Kara Haas who was running the 2 mile and knew I was aiming for a win. I caught her at 1.4 miles but three others were still ahead. I could not drop Kara. The top 3 guys continued on and Kara and I were locked in a battle with less than 200 meters to go when we both missed the correct way to the finish. I jumped the curb and Kara followed (so I don’t think I gained anything). I managed to hold her off by 1.9 seconds for my first win of the year!
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