Franklin Park 5k?

It's a beautiful course with lots of spectator vantage points--so great atmosphere. There are a lot of turns, so plan to change gears a lot. There is a hill, the "Bear Cage", which you go up twice. It's not too bad if you are used to hills. The final half-mile features a loop around the start/finish area with a descent and then right hand turns. Save something for the final 200 as there are always duels once all the turns are behind you. Good luck.

Make sure you get out hard in the first 200 meters because the course narrows out very quickly, and the first mile goes by very quickly if you are not boxed in.

The second mile is almost indisputably the hardest due to the hill.

I assume there will be mile markers, and once you are in the third mile it is very quick from there on out.

The last 300-400 meter are completely flat after a short, steep downhill, so it is a great kicker's course.

Good luck in your race!

Back Bay 1975 wrote:

It's a beautiful course with lots of spectator vantage points--so great atmosphere. There are a lot of turns, so plan to change gears a lot. There is a hill, the "Bear Cage", which you go up twice. It's not too bad if you are used to hills. The final half-mile features a loop around the start/finish area with a descent and then right hand turns. Save something for the final 200 as there are always duels once all the turns are behind you. Good luck.

Not how the course is anymore

Basically, the first mile is very fast, its a loop around white stadium, starts on a short gradual uphill but there is then a long gradual downhill. Avoid getting sucked out too fast, as everyone goes out incredibly fast the first mile. Bear cage hill is tough as hell, don't go all out the first mile.

On the second loop, you run on a similar big field loop around white's stadium that then spikes up bearcage hill, which is a very steep gravel 200m hill, which is really killer. The downhill is steep and jarring, but you need to open up on it, to catch people.

The last mile is through the wilderness, which is a dark woods loop, where you are completely alone, no spectators. This is the hardest part of the race. Try to push and stay out of no mans land and catch the people in front of you. Once you exit the wilderness, you have may be 1k- 800m to go, here you should be driving, letting loose. The final 600/800 is back around the big starting field, but there is a jarring downhill with 400 to go to watch out for, you will have to expect that your stride will be cut. From there, its all you got to the finish.

Good luck.

Hard to read the words "very steep", "jarring", and "killer" when referring to the hills at Franklin Park.

The description was laughable. Bear cage is a fairly easy 200m hill, run through it, that is the only test on the course, very fast. The tough down hill near the finish loop is about a ten foot drop, nice springboard. This is an easy 5k course, the sad thing is that most xc courses these days are glorified track races.

2015 results:

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/15/ma/Oct25_Mayors_set7.shtml

starting last year, the 5K became a USATF-NE master's grand prix event, so your top competition is a bunch of fast old men. The winner last year was a college (or maybe just post-college) runner who was training for a sub 4 mile and jumped into the 5K instead of racing the 8K.

middle.professor wrote:

2015 results:

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/15/ma/Oct25_Mayors_set7.shtml

starting last year, the 5K became a USATF-NE master's grand prix event, so your top competition is a bunch of fast old men. The winner last year was a college (or maybe just post-college) runner who was training for a sub 4 mile and jumped into the 5K instead of racing the 8K.

He should have ran the 8K for the competition. Did he ever break 4:00 last year?

Thanks for all the info.

Kinda ran shit, but that's on me.

16:50ish and was expecting to go low 16:20. Definitely a tougher course than other places.

This was my first true XC invite however, so a great experience.

I'll get over this tomorrow.

I will say, Bear Cage Hill took more out of me than I thought. Gotta mentally run harder.

7 Horowitz, Coby PTI 3:59.55 2

http://lancertiming.com/results/winter16/buterrierm.htm

Had to do it from the "slow" heat, too.