Congrats to Brad!

[Jon Adams]

Brad musta been reading my mind. I had just sat down here at my terminal and was about to post the question...."Where the heck is Brad!"....when my phone rang. ;D
Brad had a great day over at Crescent City Classic 10K in NOLA this morning as he had a new PR of 36:44 (unofficial)!!!
Waytago Brad!

[Jon Adams]

....BTW, Brad placed 61st overall out of nearly 20,000 runners!

[Brad]

Hey Jon! thanks for the callout.

The whole day went very well for me. Temps in the low 60's and breeze out of the northeast. A little better than ATR.

After dropping the car off at City Park and finding the right bus line to get down to Jackson Square for the start, I bumped into Shawn who showed me the ropes at the start. Warming up on the river levee out of the crowd in the Quarter with a pathway to sneak up to the start was great. Wow! and what a crowd crushing up the line. Not much control in dividing the qualifiers from the rest of the masses.

Anyhow; I got off the a pretty clean start about 10 runners back from the line and was able to work my way up on the edges without getting banged around to much. We took a spin through downtown and turned back toward the Quarter. I got to say hey to Douglas Meduna in this stretch as the wind started wailing through the high rises. I sure thought a good race time might be over at that point, but I ducked into a pack and pushed on.

I missed the the first mile split but the second mile was dead on at 11:52. Turned onto Esplanade with a gang of BAR runners with the beer wagon yelling me on. That boast along with the wind dropping off made the long drag race down oak lined Esplanade looked better.

I kept wheezing and catching folks along this stretch, but I couldn't shake the guy in tri-athlete shorts and plastic sounding shoes. I think we must have traded off position 5 or 6 times the rest of the race; me wheezing and his shoes slap-slap-slapping away.

Finally we were in City Park with a mile to go. Oxygen deprived and twisting and turning though the park I lost all scene of direction to the finish. Seeing a line of runners ahead on what I think is a couple turns down the course the evil thoughts of "it's so dang long to the finish... never going... to make it at this... pace" run through my addled head.

I drop the pace some and slap-slap slides past me.

Another turn and there is the finish. All thoughs people were on a part of the course I'd already run!
Dope!

Trying desperately to chase down the dang slap-slaps I cross
the finish.

Never caught them , but I did make it in a PR of 36:44.5 clip! and Douglas came in with a 39:33 All in all a very nice day.

P.S. Bring your own beer and bib number to the after race party.
I doubled my cool down going back to the car after changing and the beer line was about 30 min. (the BAR runners took care of the beer though! )

[Jill McEvoy]

awesome race and story!