Burque Brew Tour Crowning

The Burque Brew Tour Crowning is social event with a little race prepended so the guests have something to do before the bar opens.

Ostensibly, the king and queen of the Burque Brew Tour are crowned for garnering the most points for their sex in the four previous BBT races: the Black Friday Turkey Trots, Grinch Lunch, Resolutions Stink! and V-Day. This year, the king's head was too big for a crown, so instead the winners were adorned with visibility Xinglets.

I chose to run to the event, run the event and run back. Although I live only 7.7 miles away, I chose an 18.8 mile route down. Additionally, I chose to abstain from three things that I normally do when I'm racing at this distance

1. drink espresso timed to maximally contribute to my pace
2. bring water to cool me down
3. listen to my Speed 3 Playlist

However, after Perky fired the shotgun and we were off, it looked like I might be able to win a free beer for the Muirheads if I ran a little faster than I would have preferred.

This was new ground for me. I hadn't run eighteen miles to get to the start of a race before, although I do plan on doing the Boston Marathon Double someday. That's when you start at the finish line and unofficially run to the start line, then officially run the Boston Marathon. If anyone drops a wheelbarrow of cash on me, I'll do it this year, but that seems unlikely.

I've also never raced in the middle of a timed event where I have my heart set on cranking out an easy fifty miles. I'm pretty darned sure that if I ran too quickly I'd stress my legs too much and the remaining 27.4 miles I needed to finish post-race would be annoying and I'm a big baby¹. What I didn't know was what would be too quickly in this context.

Luckily, I didn't find out. I ran quickly enough to win a free beer for Glenda, but slowly enough that the rest of my day was skittles.

Normally, I include Strava tracks for each of my races, but my Academy of Pain Strava Tracks subsume my Crowning Race. Look around mile 20. In theory, I averaged about an 8:10 pace (minutes per mile).

Whee!