I’m already a week late for this report, 10K road race last weekend.
Running a 10K two weeks out from a marathon is old school as hell, but it was what they did back in the day. These days some training programs have it, some don’t.
It was a big race weekend here and Sunday’s 10 mile and marathon as top billing, both have been national championship events going back decades (although not every year). On Saturday they have more low key 5K and 10K. I signed up for the 10K instead of the 10 mile because an all out and hilly 10 mile race two weeks ahead of the marathon might be asking too much, but 10K a day earlier. Can do! Then the USATF designated the 10K a national championship for pro/open runners and that would make it more interesting.
This has been a good year, but have noticed have been slowing some each year across all distances even though I’m training just as much while trying to have good quality blocks. I ran 1:21:40 for the half marathon in 2021, 1:23:30 in 2022, and then for consecutive years ran 1:24s. This year it 1:25:15. The pattern for 5K and 10K have been similar.
As you get older the motivations from PBs to holding off the slowdown and age grading, on top of just staying healthy enough to compete.
This year my one and only 10K was a 39:33 back in April in my seasonal debut. I though running under 39:20 was a reasonable goal (a far cry from going under 38:20 last year), but my fitness this year had not shown I could match that. I did think breaking 39 might be in the cards if all went well.
Training has been good (I had logged nearly 1600 miles since the beginning of April) but I experimented with a lot of sub-threshold training back in the spring (and less threshold and CV) and then I shifted to marathon training at the beginning of July. So overall I had been doing less faster training than maybe I’m used to. Note, however that by late August I deviated some from Davis’s Marathon Excellence guidelines and added more specific 10K and half marathon workouts in the mid week. I felt the need for a bit more speed than the program suggested.
Pre-race
We had good weather, near ideal for fall, at 50 degrees and no rain but with some breeze billowing through. I warmed up, and got a picture of the women’s start (15 minutes before we went off) and almost screwed up my own start. I figured I’d have plenty of time to line up but they had 6-foot fences along the entire start corral (probably 150 meters) I dropped off my camera and ran to the opposite side and it was also blocked off! They told me to go to the back of the line. So with about 6 or 7 minutes to go I had to make my way through about 2700 runners packed into the corral. I had to be a bit rude because in the walking sections (18-15 minute/mile groups) they were packed in there and not moving. I got yelled at a few times. But found a group doing the same as I and they plowed through some of the way. Finally when I got to more of the runner’s zone (12 and 10 minutes/mile) things opened up a bit and I was able to get to the 6-7 minute placard with about 2 minutes to spare. Later I saw online that least couple other runners had to do the same thing.
Start of the women’s 10K last weekend.
Apologies to those that I bumped into. TC Marathon might rethink their corral set up and access–but then again maybe I shouldn’t be snapping pictures 15 minutes before the start!
The Race Itself
I was a little rattled as we took off and headed up the big hill at the start, after 200 m the course climbs for about a km before leveling off some. I tried to push the last minute stress that out of my head and settled into what seemed a reasonable effort. My watch hit 6:33 at the official timing mat for the first mile split. We turned onto the main street for the out and back and I realized that I was already in no-man’s land with about 3-4 runners already 50-70 meters ahead, and a pack of a dozen or so 100 meters up. I’d have a lot of work to catch anyone.
It was fun to see the lead pack of six or seven men still grouped up at 5 miles. A few minutes later the lead women were returning and Amanda Vestri had a huge lead, with second place Cassie Parker 20 or 30 seconds behind. The battle was for third with a pack of five runners still together.
My splits were 6:13 for the second mile and the 5K split was 19:52. With the big hill at the beginning and end I figured to have a negative split, but by how much? I didn’t not do any the math in my head, but just pressed on.
Even though my turnover felt fast (almost too fast) and beathing was hard (but not too hard) I felt good. It was nice not to feel held back by the heat that we had through the summer! I had finally caught those 3-4 runners by mile 4 and 5 (both about 6:14) and crossed 5 miles in about 31:30. We had a semi-pack for about a mile.
Proof than I’m a heel striker.
Then we had the fun part of the course with the long net downhill toward the finish. I was able to open up some, going back and forth with another runner as the other two fell back. Split mile 6 in 6:03, fastest of the day, and threw whatever I had left for the final few hundred meters (mostly flat). Crossed in 38:50.
I had a good day! 1st in age group and 3rd masters, and >90% age grade. Now I’m in taper mode for the marathon.
