by Paul Thompson
(Photos by Shamala Thompson and Rockland Road Runners)
In the autumn (fall does not have the same ring to it) of my running career I have come to enjoy local low key races. This race, put on by Rockland Road Runners, under the capable tutelage of Bill Carpenter, is one of those races. I ran it in 2023 and vowed to return. So here I was standing on the start line, alongside Chris Fischer, with whom I’d trained throughout the first year of the pandemic. There was no start line gantry, no heavily policed corrals, no pushing and shoving. Just well behaved runners.
The 2023 race was my first real, in-person, race since we had gotten locked down. A combination of an over exuberant first few miles – I put that down to lack of race practice such that my auto pilot malfunctioned – and a sweat fest of a day left me with 61:30. This year I figured I was at a similar level of fitness but ought to run faster with smarter pacing, with help from Chris, and great conditions. My plan was to run even pace and get under 60 minutes. I’d run 60:04 in a poorly paced Cherry Blossom 10 Mile in Washington D.C. in April so I thought this was in my wheelhouse. Chris decided he’d run with me and, depending on how he felt and whether there was anyone worth chasing, then put the hammer down.
The route is an out and back course from Franklin Street Park in South Nyack. You can view the elevation change interactively on this Strava Route. The first mile descends 100 feet to River Road. The next 7 miles, out and back to the tip of the Piermont pier (where the longest railroad in the US terminated and from where US troops embarked to Europe in WWII as this video explains) are flat and fast with just a few sharp turns. After re-entering South Nyack, from mile 8.3 to the turn onto the Esposito Trail at mile 9.1 it climbs about 120 feet. The last mile is a gradual downhill on the trail. Not that you’d notice.
After a fast first mile in around 5;45 Chris and I settled into an even pace of 6 MPM along River Road. Chris was keen to race a few people so we started duking it out with one guy. We passed 5K in around 18:20, substantially slower than my opening 5K in the Cherry Blossom but not appreciably easier. Chris seemed to be cruising and said he was keen to stay under heart rate of 150 BPM. He regularly shared HR data – at first I was confused as I thought he was sharing splits – and I reciprocated with less favorable data of my own. I said I’d be lucky to keep mine under 170: it read 168.
When we use to train together we use to share the talking, waxing lyrical about anything and everything. We both like to talk and while training could do a lot of it. On many training runs I felt like we were two runners talking, no runners listening, the whole way. This time Chris enjoyed the lion’s share of the airwaves. By default. At the U turn at the end of Piermont pier I said I had lots of knowledge about the pier but he’d have to wait to hear it all blow by blow at the finish.
As we headed back through Piermont at around mile 6 Chris sensed we were slightly off our 60 minute target – given the climb in the penultimate mile. – but was content to run with me until the closing stages and ensure he did not get overtaken by a guy, likely masters, who had been tracking us for much of the race. Chris is an M40-44 runner and was keen top that age group. The leading masters runner was 53 year old Art Gunther, a highly decorated collegiate runner, who was out of sight and, almost, out of mind.
Miles 6 through 8 gently roll along River Road. The road has a great surface and is especially bike friendly. To our right we could see the Tappan Zee Bridge spanning the Hudson River. At mile 8.3 we passed under the bridge and started the climb to mile 9.1. I dug real deep on the climb, deeper than I remember.
As the climb ended and we turned hard right onto the Esposito Trail, essentially the long finishing straight, we got caught. That triggered an immediate acceleration from Chris who went on to run 60:53, comfortably ahead of the guy and 9th place overall. I crawled across the line in 11th place in 61:09. Another hard day at the office, made harder by the disappointment of running outside 60 minutes. Sub 60 is proving elusive but I still have 60 at 60 as a target for 2026. We must never lose ambition!
Chris and I loitered around the finish area for a while. I was trying to make sense of it all as well as get my free stuff – whippy ice cream cone with Oreo sprinkles, a paper cup of lager, and bagel. Post race I can eat anything. Almost.
Chris won the M40-44 age group and I the M55-59. We each got a small gold medal for our efforts, awarded to us my Bill Carpenter who, as it happens, hails from the same county as me in the UK (Northamptonshire, abbreviated to Northants). That made it feel like I was back home when he called me up to collect my medal in my native accent.
So at long last I got to race with Chris. Throughout the pandemic we had logged countless miles together and filled the airwaves with our running commentary on the pandemic. As we had lunch with Chris’ fiancee Amanda and my wife Sham I was able to dominate the airwaves once more, making up for the silence Chris had to endure throughout much of the race. Bummer that I forgot about that pier!
The full results are here. Matt Politis edged out the 2023 winner to win in 52:18. Art Gunther was first masters in 58:45. Abbey Kimbrell won the women’s race, for the third year running, in 62:37. The official race day pictures are here. I failed to start my watch so have no Strava data to share. Suffice to say most of the race I was running just outside 6 MPM and my HR was over 160!
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