SATURDAY, 28 AUGUST 2004 - THE CRIM TEN MILER

We have a reservist general surgeon who has been working with us for the last 4 weeks.  He is actually part of the 874th FST which is currently in a location a bit South of us.  He is up here augmenting the 67th.  He has participated in the Crim Festival several times in the past and was a bit homesick for the opportunity to do so again.  Through the website he contacted the organizers and got them to agree to let us run the race "remotely."  They gave us complimentary registration.  We run the race here, email them with our times, and they agreed to list us with their finishers.  A cool deal for us runners, although I sure will miss the t-shirt.

So, at 0545 (5:45 am) today local Mosul time, in total darkness with a nippy temperature of 78 degs F, we started our ten-miler.  We have a 2 mile loop that we run here rather religiously.  For "safety" reasons we are not permitted to run in other areas of this FOB.  So our race consisted of 5 laps...  The loop is actually not that bad.  About 1/2 of it is on road, the other 1/2 on packed gravel and dirt.  It is 100% FLAT.  It gets a bit boring after a while, but 2 miles is a good sized loop.  I have been on deployments where the only loop I could run was 3/4 mile.  That gets boring FAST.

Overall we did really well.  Myself and MAJ Starnes ran 1 hr 13 min 15 sec.  MAJ Cordero ran 1 hr 21 min 25 sec.  Below are the splits Starnes and I ran.

SPLITS (the pace for the previous two miles is in parenthesis):

2 miles:  15 min 33 sec  (7:46 min/mile pace)

4 miles:  30 min 25 sec (7:26 min/mile pace)

6 miles:  44 min 57 sec (7:16 min/mile pace)

8 miles:  59 min 16 sec (7:09 min/mile pace)

10 miles:  1 hr 13 min 15 sec (7:00 min/mile pace)

Starnes and I were pleased with our times, especially the fact that each two mile loop was faster than the previous one.  A good time was had by all of us.  We could have discovered a new way to "run" races here.  I am from Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Distance Run is coming up in a few weeks...

click on the thumbnailed pics on the left for the big pictures.