Darren Winchenbach
Reports on his fb page:
Robert Burns 10k: A lot to share with this one- 14th overall, 2nd man in a kilt. Thank you Ned for the prize. Official time was 43:26. Beat last year’s time by almost 7 minutes and the reason for that is because I didn’t run the Cape Elizabeth 10 mile midwinter classic course as a training run the day before the race like I did last year. 43 minutes is the best time I’ve run for a 10K in 3 years. Congratulations to my Valor teammates Colin C on winning the race and to Ryan Jara for coming in 4th. And thank you to another Valor teammate Erin McGuire Schroeder for coming out and cheering me on in the 0 degree temperatures. Also thank you to all the volunteers who came out in the frigid temperatures to help put this race on for us. It’s hard to run a race in this freezing cold ass temperatures. But it’s even harder to stand still in them while directing us on where to go when you’re outside longer than the rest of us runners. And most important I’m happy to report I finished the race in one piece as I was nearly struck by two separate vehicles on Bridge Street between mile 4 and 5. Both occurrences were totally unrelated and both happened within less than a minute apart. How did this happen? Because neither driver was paying attention or expecting to see any runners coming in the direction that neither one of those drivers decided to look. Thankfully I was well aware of my surroundings and prepared enough to avoid disaster both times. Unfortunately in the heat of both moments I exerted a lot of energy by screaming at the both of them in a very angry manner which clearly brought my time down for the 4th mile of the race. I wish both drivers had their windows down so they could have heard every word I said. Again I’m alive unharmed and I’m able to bitch about it. I pray something like this does not happen again for a while or ever again at all (which would be best).