Pell Bridge Run

October 19, 2025

7:15AM

Jamestown, RI

The Pell Bridge run has been a local road race on my bucket list for as long as I can remember. I could never race due to conflicts with the cross country season. In 2022, I opted to join my Dad racing in Detroit that weekend and the following two years I was living in California. In 2025, it lined up well. It's a crowded time of the year and I'm glad I was able to do it this year.

It's an interesting race going over the Newport Pell Bridge from Jamestown into Newport - the only time of the year you can run over it. It's about 250' of climbing, mostly up and over the bridge, and then is largely flat in Newport. I found out just before the race that the course was changed from previous years, and the old course was about 150 meters short of 4 miles whereas the new one was about 100 meters longer. It's largely the same but uses the Westbound bridge lane rather than the east, which also means different entrance and exit ramps. 

Despite having 3,000+ people run the race, it's not especially competitive. Other than a very fast 2022 race where the winner broke 19 minutes (probably still 19:30 for 4 miles), the winning times are usually around 20:30-21:00 for the shorter course. I didn't have a specific time goal given the course wasn't exactly 4 miles and the big hill would certainly be a challenge. I was hoping this would be a bounce back race after two really bad performances coming in. My workouts and fitness seemed just fine. I scanned the start list and thought unless someone fast I don't know is racing, I should have a good shot at the win. My main competitor would be Kenny Vinacco, but I thought if I had a good day and ran evenly, I should be able to beat him. 

Picked up my bib Saturday, which helped out with the logistics. Since my parents were watching and could drive me back, I simply parked at a park a quarter mile away from the start race day and hung out there until it was time to warm up. This worked out quite well as there were 2 bathrooms there and I didn't have to deal with finding parking and/or taking a shuttle from Newport. Warmed up the usual 3 miles or so, I had a little bit of stomach discomfort but not an issue during the race. 

The start area was packed and I had to go away from there to pee and do some strides. The strides felt extremely flat with zero pop to my stride- probably the worst pre race strides have felt in years. Not exactly a confidence booster. It was extremely easy to just walk up and line up in the front of the corral, where I saw Adrian, Kenny, Tom and Shara (and Andrew, who I drove over with). Perfect weather- 51 degrees and minimal wind. 

We started off and I ran out in second with Kenny slightly ahead of me. No one really blasted out today. I think I wanted to run the bridge miles in roughly 5:20-5:30, run the third mile downhill really fast and get as close to 5 flat on the final mile. However, the plan didn't quite fit as the crest of the hill was at 1.3 when I thought it was close to the 2 mile mark. I pulled even with Kenny and felt relaxed at this point. It was clear there wouldn't be any other contenders, so I used the flats to keep the pace honest and start to get a small gap. We started climbing just before half a mile and had a steady 5% grade through 1.3 miles. I was feeling a bit flat already and the hill felt super hard. I extended my lead through about 3/4 mile, then started to feel awful after more minutes of sustained climbing. Towards the mile mark, the sun was shining brightly in my eyes as I chased the cop car and motorcycle while hearing Kenny's steps start to get closer. Mile in 5:27. 

The next third of mile felt brutal as my lungs and legs were struggling, my lead was getting cut into and I could barely see with the bright sun. I was running over 6 minute pace which felt like I had really fallen off. Fortunately, the hill suddenly ended and I'd now have a lot of gravity to assist me. I didn't feel smoother going downhill but it took a lot less effort to keep it going whereas I was slipping on the up. I had done the work to create a gap on the hard part, but would need to keep the downhill honest to make sure I didn't give up that gap. The road was really patchy on the downhill with lots of uneven patches and I was worried I'd trip or roll and ankle. No such issues and I surprised myself running a 5:08 for mile 2 even with the slow pace to start.

I was also surprised that I had already run most of the downhill and it was flat/slight downhill for the rest of the bridge. I kept things rolling without hammering and I think I increased the gap a bit here, before exiting the bridge. It's deceptively long to the finish as you have to run all the way around the exit ramp, cross under the bridge and then you're on the final stretch. This exit ramp turn gave me a good angle of the race playing out behind me, and I had about 15 seconds on Kenny. All I'd have to do now is stay focused and not slip up- if he had a massive kick in him, he probably wouldn't have let the gap get so big. 

My legs felt truly awful coming off the ramp and with a slight incline to the next intersection, my watch was showing 5:30. If I run 5:30 for this last mile, I will get caught. Fortunately, I think it was just the result of getting momentarily complacent and the slight uphill. On the next stretch of road past the cemeteries, I quickly got back to 5:10 pace or so. The lead vehicles had been well ahead of me much of the race, but now came to a near stop. There were totally blocking the optimal line across the road, so I attempted to sneak past on the very side to which they realized they were in the way and sped way up. I got to the end of the cemeteries without giving up much ground and recognized this spot as about 200 meters to go. I used the slight downhill here to accelerate into a small kick and take the win in 21:02. 

Results here. Successful bounce back performance here- I got the win and managed sub-5:10 for the last 3 miles. Strava has my best 5K in that space as 15:50/5:06 pace, I think that's definitely strong after going out hard for 0.9 miles with a lot of uphill. Even a 20:25 for so for a flat 4 miler would be a good run so I'd like to think I could be close to 20 flat on a fast 4 mile course. In an ideal race, I close that last mile in sub 5 (I was 5:06), but given flat legs and an aggressive front running strategy (4:52 GAP for first mile) I think that's fine. I never really slipped up at any point and my last three miles were fairly even effort. 

I think the event was well organized, but it clearly isn't very elite. The awards were quite lackluster- I think it would benefit them to add some prize money given the large field size and potentially attract some faster runners. The logistics and parking seem like a massive pain if you're doing bib pickup and taking the shuttle race day, fortunately I found a convenient workaround for this. I wouldn't say no to doing it again but if I didn't have the benefit of getting a ride back, I think the experience would have been less pleasant and it's likely I'll have other races lined up around this time.

Twin Cities 10 Mile

October 5, 2025

7AM

Minneapolis to St. Paul, MN

The twin cities 10 mile is part of the Twin Cities marathon weekend, but is probably the premier distance of the weekend. The race has been super competitive, with Conner Mantz winning in 45:13 in 2024 and 10th place being in the low 47s. I think its' only rival in the US would be the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile. 

At some point, I'd like to try out this iconic and competitive US road race and it fit well this year. I liked my spring format of having a half and a slightly shorter distance (two 15Ks). This time I'd target this 10 Mile and a half. The downside of the timing was I wanted to run Hartford Half, but couldn't do both with this being 6 days prior. If I did hartford, there would be no opportunity to do a 15K/10 mile race but with this, there would be other opportunities to run a half. When I signed up in March, I probably visualized a low 52 or under 52- 5:12 pace. This seemed reasonable given 5:15 pace at Gate River and 5:14 pace at Frank Nealon 15Ks in the spring. However, after the fall block just not going anywhere near as smooth as the spring, I had to redefine these expectations- I'd shoot for sub-53 (5:18 pace). I had come around enough on workouts that I should be in pretty good shape but likely wasn't going to touch my spring self. 

Fast forward to race weekend and once again I was adjusting expectations. It was going to be 70 degrees at race start, despite starting at 7am in October. I think my new goal was to try to run 5:20s or so. The good news was I had decent acclimation. The course here was somewhat challenging with some hills. There was nothing steep, but a 100' climb in mile 3 and a 150' steady climb over 3 miles in 5-7. I wasn't too worried about that given decent races in hills in NYC half and Frank Nealon, but it was certainly possibly I wasn't in great uphill shape.

Like some other races, Andrew joined me for this one. Decided just to go one day and fly over the day before. I think 1 versus 2 days before is a bit of a trade off. 2 days out and you sleep better, don't have to walk much the day before, but sitting around in your hotel room all day is quite boring. 1 day out you don't sleep as well as there's extra fatigue from walking around but the day goes by quickly then you're racing, plus less time to get nervous. I've largely opted for day before for half and below, 2 days out for marathons. There was also the question of staying in Minneapolis or St. Paul. I opted for St. Paul so I didn't have to figure out transport post race, plus the expo was in St. Paul.

When we arrived in St. Paul, it was 90 degrees. Picked up our bibs, got some food and to bed. Went for my typical routine of roughly 2 miles warmup from the hotel then 1 more mile at race start. Noticed two things- 70, even in the dark felt very warm and my stomach did not feel good at all, similar to Andrew. We took the light rail over to downtown Minneapolis, waited in a long bathroom line, before a short warmup and strides. My stomach didn't really improve and I headed over to the start still having stomach distress. The corrals were extremely easy to get into and it was fairly relaxed until the start. 

Things felt pretty relaxed right away, but even just half a mile in it wasn't as comfortable as I liked. People started pulling away from me and I felt like I'd expend too much energy to stay with them, which is not a good feeling early on. The mile was still pretty good in 5:15, right on but certainly was a bit worried about how hard it felt. I remember going by some bike paths I had run in Minneapolis two years prior. The downhill mile 2 carried me to a 5:17 which was fine. We then had an uphill mile 3 and I suddenly I was struggling significantly and dropping pace quickly. I covered the third mile in 5:49(!) and was right around 17 miles through 5K which is a huge red flag. Slight downhill/flat mile 4, but I never really got back into it, just wasn't running as slow as before. My stomach bothered me through 4 miles until I had a gel and then it felt fine for the rest. 

Turned onto summit ave, which the remainder of the race would be on, and hit the long uphill. I was running so bad- close to 6:00 flat pace here feeling completely spent and with totally cooked legs. I wasn't bonking but there were no other gears there. Such a bizarre feeling given late in Gate River and NYC Half when I had gone out aggressively and felt very weak at that point, I was still running 5:20s-5:30s. This race is kind of a foggy memory- at some point around halfway it became apparently that even if I worked hard to hammer the rest, I'd still be nowhere near my goals. I think the slowest time I'd be content with here was a 53:59, and that was certainly gone. Even my slow PR of 55:30 was unlikely to happen. Funny enough, despite falling from 5:15s to 6:00s, I was still running fairly even place wise and even occasionally passing some other guys. I started to think about the possibility that Andrew could beat me.

I used the slight downhill of 8-9 to slightly pick it up back into the 5:30s/5:40s. The last mile was a pretty significant downhill with a really cool finish seeing the massive capitol building in the background. I ended up closing kinda fast due to the downhill boost with a 5:17 final mile, which was barely enough to break 57. 56:55 for 71st.  

Quarter mile to finish

Finish view

Found Andrew who had similar struggles, went to gear check and back to the hotel. I threw up a bit and felt really bad afterwards. Spent the night there and did some sightseeing in Minneapolis plus a good run on the great bike path network the following day- nice to get that in rather than head home immediately with a sour taste in my mouth. 

Como Park Conservatory

Minnehaha Falls

Stone Arch Bridge

Reflection on this one- there's not much to say there, this was a terrible performance. Quite possibly the worst race of the 2020s for me. And it comes in a period where I've been very consistent and able to get quality out of days where I don't feel great. This is the first time in a quite a while where I had two bad performances in a row- very rare for me. I believe everyone is off and has a bad day once in a while, but it was extremely concerning doing it twice in a row, being worse the second time around, and having a full month of fitness gains and good workouts behind me between the two races. 

It's hard to put on finger on this one, clearly I was off by a significant enough margin that I can't just say it came down to any decisions on that day. I'm not using the heat as an excuse- the top times were quite fast, I had good acclimation and electrolytes, and I never felt hot during the race. I do think I clearly ate something that disagreed with me, having stomach discomfort for the first 4 miles then throwing up after is almost unprecented for me, plus Andrew ate the same food and had the same issues. 

Felt like this performance put me in desperation mode- absolutely need to get the next few races right or this is going to be a serious problem. That said, I wasn't quite panicking- I just came off a great workout the prior weekend and if I managed another respectable long run/workout then it would probably be fair to say that's an off day. But there was just about no more room for error if I wanted this to be a successful block. 

As for the event, I thought nearly everything was well done other than the significant bathroom lines at the start. I think the train ride was like 40 minutes so that's kind of annoying but just something you have to deal with doing point to point events. The start area was a bit confusing and I didn't know how to get to the start. Also the gear check is at the expo, so you have to drop your things the day before. The start corrals are about the best organized I've seen, the course was great, the crowd support was great, and that finish mile is quite cool and scenic. The post race snacks were generic but probably above average. My hotel is St. Paul was pretty affordable too. I'd consider doing it again but there's a lot of other races and it's a very busy time of year. 

September Recap

September was a mixed bag of a month- I eventually got back on track in my workouts after struggling quite in a bit in August. However, my lone race at the North Shore 10K was pretty bad and I had to miss the New Haven Road Race due to a poorly timed ankle sprain. Much of the month was taken up by a 2 week road trip to Newfoundland, where I got in good base mileage and elevation but not a lot of good workouts. 

Conner Mantz leading the New Haven road race

Workouts this month:

9/1- 3x2 Mile on half mile rest. averaged around 5:30, this was a good step forward

9/4- 2 mile tempo, hard rep up pequot trail hill, 5x1 min

9/10- 7x3 min on/2 off in Nova Scotia

9/13- 4 mile tempo in St. John's (goal was 8, felt extremely flat)

9/16- 3x5 min tempo on 2 rest, 2 mile uphill push

9/20- 8 mile tempo in Charlestown, 5:46 pace

9/24- 5x1K, 5x500m on 75s rest

9/27- 2x5 mile tempo on mile rest in Coventry, average about 5:37 pace

Big step forward in workouts. The 3x2 mile was much better than anything I had done, the 8 mile was a nice step up too although I was fading towards the end, then the 2x5 mile was fantastic- one of the better workouts I've done in any block. Going off pace, that ended up being the best workout of the block. I think Washington Secondary is a good flatter venue to lock in and get into a rhythym versus the grind of Charlestown hills. The reasons I wouldn't call this a great month is I raced once, and it went poorly. And I wanted to get a good session in on the 13th and weirdly could only run like 6:10 pace at fastest. It's also difficult to compare it to February where every workout clicked and I had no issues whatsoever. 

Other than the ankle issue, not too banged up this month. The ankle healed nicely and I felt more confident running on dirt road and lightly technical trail towards the end of the month. I had a brief achilles issue but I did some exercises for it and it cleared up quickly. 

Weekly Mileage for September: 81, 85, 78, 92

Newfoundland Trip Highlights:

Started out in Bar Harbor, one of my favorite places. Ran up the Cadillac auto road which was kind of fun but was dicey in some places with the lack of shoulder. Felt quite hard. Also the food and dining in Bar Harbor (and coastal maine in general) is excellent. 

Wednesday was into Nova Scotia where I was worried about the running but other than one awful section on a very busy road with no shoulder, got on a mix of dirt and paved backroads. Nice ferry from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth. Out and back on a dirt road in a provincial park Thursday in Newfoundland, quiet but unremarkable. 

Friday and Saturday were in St. John's. Pretty nice for easy running, made a good loop out of a network of bike paths and gravel paths. Their system was large and well organized, but was not set up well for the road crossings, several of which crossed 4 lanes with zero crosswalk there. Super steep hills in some areas. Excellent views from nearby cliffs. I went for my long run planning on doing a long OAB on a gravel path (Newfoundland T'Railway), this got completely derailed due to a closed section of the path and taking quite a while to work around the detour. This path would be great for easy running, but loose gravel, narrow sections and busy road sections made it not the best choice for a workout. 

Coastal views near St. John's

Next few days more OAB runs since there's not a ton of infrastructure in rural Newfoundland. These were almost always pleasant though. Outside of St. John's, Rocky Harbour was the only actually nice town- everything else was indistinguishable from strip mall america. Port-aux-Basques was quite picturesque but much busier running than some of the other areas. 

Dad and I went for a longer hike up Gros Morne mountain. The views were absolutely stunning here and this was a phenomenal hike. It get crazy technical on the way back and there was a super hard climb up a "gully" to get to the summit. Earlier we had done a hike in Terra Nova National Park which was also quite scenic, going through pine forest, lakes and sweeping views. Parts of Newfoundland certainly reminded of Minnesota with lots of pine forest and so many lakes. Others looked quite different- open bogs, alpine mountains, sandy beaches. 

Terra Nova outlook views (Ochre Hill)

Felt like Minnesota here

Gros Morne photos:

This was one of, if not the best views I've seen on the East Coast

The food was not very impressive outside St. John's and Rocky Harbour. Lots of generic, unhealthy food and several restaurants claimed their chowder was world class, when it was just okay. The infrastructure and roads were downright terrible in some places, with highways being littered with potholes. Often there were no real restaurants to stop at in the rural areas and the only food options was junk food at gas stations. 

We also went to L'Anse aux Meadows. The scenery here was amazing but I thought it was just okay as a historical site and it adds like 11 hours of driving. 

Terrain near L'Anse aux Meadows- felt like Iceland

Arches Provincial Park

Movies Watched in September: Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, No Time to Die, War Dogs

North Shore 10K

September 7, 2025

9AM

Salem, MA

After rustbusters at Run 4 Kerri and Bobby Doyle, the plan was to get in a few weeks of good training then race the New Haven Road Race September 1st. That didn't quite go to plan, I struggled in my workouts in August then sprained my ankle twice including just before New Haven. I was frustrated and had to pull the plug on racing New Haven and initially thought I'd do the same for North Shore 10K 6 days later but it recovered well enough that it didn't seem like a risky decision to race the 10K. The one good thing about this is that instead of going into the race fatigued with a 20K race 6 days prior, I'd be fresh. 

This was the USATF-NE 10K for the year. I had been racing for Notch for 2 years with this being my first full year as I'd race 4 grand prix races (would be 5 if the Super Sunday 4 Mile wasn't cancelled). This was a home race for Notch as it started in Salem right next to Notch and all members except me were probably quite familiar with the course. I thought the first half was pretty good, but the second had many turns and some rollers that would slow things down. 

I went for a warm-up solo as I feel the group has been starting their warmups very late and I have to rush to get ready when I go with them. Pouring rain for the race. My goal was somewhere in the low to mid-32s. Probably try to get a PR (32:40) worse case scenario. It sounded like some other Notch guys had similar goals, so I'd probably just look for them. 

Unlike many USATF-NE with terrible or crowded this one wasn't too bad on a wider road. However, the first turn, there was a deep puddle which was completely unavoidable if you were on the right which I was so I got my feet wet quickly. I tried to stay relaxed and careful for half a mile or so both trying to avoid any cracks with my ankle and the super slippery potholes. It was crowded for half mile then the road got wider and I was able to run comfortably. Near some CMS guys and Willy and Steve from Notch. I hit the first mile in 5:07 with a good pack feeling relaxed. This really felt like the 32 flat pack and a good spot to me. 

However after another few minutes, I found myself at the back at the pack and slowly getting gapped. I wasn't suddenly tying up or feeling bad, but running the same effort I just was slipping. Literally slipping too as I had zero traction on the wet roads and it felt like I was working a bit harder just to run that pace. After half a mile, that pack was gone and I was getting passed by some other people. Going back into downtown, the group ahead of me had to run wide left and pivot due to a truck coming out of a driveway quickly. I guess the one advantage of me slowing was not having to deal with that. I managed a slower than I'd like but still decent 5:17-5:20 next two miles and was still on sub-33 through the 5K. It started absolutely pouring at that moment. 

Mile 4 was on a wider road with some rollers and the rain was coming down so hard it was hard to see. This was my chance to get back in the race, but I just continued to slow and was losing motivation. I didn't feel unusually tired or tight and at this point traction was no longer a problem. But I simply could not run much faster than 5:25 pace. Turning off that road, we went into a park with some tight turns and puddles. The turns being wet felt really sketchy to me and I was slowing down even more. 

I got passed frequently in the final 1.5 miles and with 7 turns in the final mile, I mostly packed it in. I turned around to see who I thought was Adrian Massie and I didn't want to lose to him so I picked it up. I tried to kick hard in the final 400m, but now found my legs were fried and I couldn't run faster than 5:20 pace. I crossed the line in a shockingly slow 33:40 for 50th place, 7th for Notch. Turns out it wasn't Adrian, although Dan Donato was only about 10-15 seconds behind me. 

This was a really pathetic result. Last 3 miles were 5:29, 5:30, 5:27- that'd be a disappointing close to a half marathon, let alone a 10K. 5:25 average pace here despite being 5:15 at Kerri and 5:19 at Doyle with significantly less fitness. Normally I can easily pinpoint what went wrong- felt terrible early, breathing off, low energy, felt super hard to maintain pace but none of those applied here. The effort felt appropriate but I simply could not run fast. It does seem like the course and conditions were not ideal for running fast, and my shoes had horrible traction plus ankle concern and slippery turns didn't help. That said- I was a minute or so off where I should have been. This is slower than my half marathon pace. Everyone else had to deal with the same conditions and they were maybe 15-20 seconds off, not a minute. I also had the perfect race in front of me- people in that early pack ran in the 32:10-32:50 range. I let them go and just steadily faded from there. 

I was pretty upset after this one- I'm generally consistent and when I do run bad usually something specific is off- for example my early half marathon in 2024 my legs were clearly quite fatigued from training. Here I was fresh, ready to go and wasn't even close to a decent day. I think everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt with a rough race once a season. It happens, but I definitely wanted to make sure the next one was pretty solid. 

As for the event itself, I thought it was fine. Some of the roads could have benefitted from more police presence as multiple cars pulled out ahead of me or other people. The last 1.5 miles had way too many turns. Good start and finish, and easy parking or public transit. Personally I'd much rather try Lone Gull and would be hesistant to run this one again. I also was and still am confused on the certification here- all USATF-NE grand prix races are supposed to be certified, but it doesn't show up in the certified races database. Unless I'm missing something or it was mislabeled, it seems like the race didn't get certified. Overall takeaway from this race was treat it as one off, forget it and move on to the next. 

August Recap

I'm too far behind on the weekly logs, so I'll write up important events here. I haven't missed weekly logs in a long time, but too much has passed for me to provide meaninful details on every single run. 

I now have recaps for Kerri and Bobby Doyle up- these were early season rustbusters. I had limited prep time coming off Laugavegur 55K but didn't want to miss these local races this year. They went fairly well with that mind- 21:03 at Kerri (4 Mile) and 26:38 at Bobby Doyle (5 Mile).

I had some fitness and injury struggles in August. Despite good races, nearly all my workouts were a struggle in August. I think part of that was challenging heat and humidity, but I was a little surprised how bad I felt this month. Here's what I did for workouts:

8/6- 2x10 minute tempo, 3 min rest

8/13- Double session. AM- 3x2 min on/2 off (failed workout), PM- 5K trail tempo at Stonington XC Fun Run

8/17- 4 Miles moderate

8/20- 4 Miles tempo + 3x2 mins hard

8/23- 6 mile tempo

8/28- 6x2 mins/2 off

Which of these workouts felt comfortably hard? None- I was struggling in all of them. That said, there was some improvement- the early ones felt miserably bad, by 8/20 I was seeing better paces and not feeling terrible until the very end. It's bizzarre how badly I felt this month compared to December/January, my start of the Boston build where nearly everything just clicked right away. The two differences I think were hot and humid weather now, and having more base miles before starting. 

As for injuries, I had significant back discomfort a few days before Bobby Doyle. I got on this immediately with heat and a lot of stretching and it wasn't an issue race day despite being borderline painful two days out. In the past, any back discomfort on a run I can typically solve with a little bit of stretching, this one took a bit more. The area right above my coccyx felt so tight and locked up. That was the least of my worries as that resolved quickly. But back to the Stonington XC Fun Run- I saw this just a fun opportunity to hop into a local event and get into some tempo miles. It ended up being a huge mistake as I sprained my ankle mid race. I actually barely won, as I was limping on it for like half a mile which allowed Simon Manlove to gap and pass me. Fortunately, the pain subsided enough to go after him and outkick him on the track. Unfortunately, it was quite uncomfortable for a short cool-down, and swelling + pain on band exercises told me it was clearly damaged.

I got away with a day off, and cutting a 8 mile run to 4 the following day, which I considered a successful turnaround. However, I didn't take into account how weak it was as I sprained it again August 30th- 17 days later on the Bluff fire roads. I've never considered the Bluff Fire Roads ankle sprain territory, but I either didn't give enough time here nor enough strengthening and paid a big price- I would have to DNS at New Haven Road Race due to the timing. This was a huge bummer as I had looked forward to this race for a long time. I almost certainly would have raced in 2023 and 2024 but was living in California for a brief stint. Now was the time for it, and the timing of the sprain meant a very high risk race given sharp turns and potential cracks or potholes in the road. I wasn't going to jeopardize the ankle and season to get the 20K done, and will plan on doing it next year. More on that in a September post. 

My best training week of the month was August 18th to 24th as I ran 76 Miles, plus had my best long run of the block- 16 in Mystic with a hilly 6 mile tempo averaging 5:50 pace. I was struggling towards the end but getting through it at a decent pace felt like a good step forward. In this week and the prior week, I ran with Keith McAteer for the first time in years as I had to go early for a few weeks due to a program I was doing, and Keith has been running early on the dark Westerly roads for a while. I also got in a double with Chris Garvin at Great Swamp, in an absolute downpour. I capped off that week with a fun run with Dad at Fisher's Island, NY- my first visit there. It was pretty cool and felt quite low key/peaceful compared to the nearby bigger islands of Block Island and Martha's Vineyard. This was a place I had always wanted to visit so it was cool to cross that off. That's a recap of August, not sure I'll stick with the monthly format, but at least through September and probably October. 

Here's some pics of the Fisher's Island trip:

Nice beaches

Dirt roads!

Ferry from New London

Movies Watched in August: You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever, The Untouchables, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, Rescue Dawn, A Bronx Tale, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, Goldeneye