Now that said, me and my tired legs were still going to try and win this race, or die trying.... and have as much fun as possible in the process! I did run a 38:33 - 10k last week, so I knew I could pull off a magical day if the conditions were right. My 10k race PR is 39:38, but all my more recent hill running had me in 42-44 minute range. When I'm training in the hills, I'm not so much concerned with my time or pace, just the perceived effort.
This race was kind of a reward for me, a bit of a break from all the more serious triathlon stuff that I really have to get amped up for. It was expensive to enter, but you got a cool shirt and a finisher's medal. I've never had a finisher's medal for a 10k before so off I went.
I decided to run along to the Garmin and I set it up for a 39 minute 10k with the virtual partner. I lined up at the front of the pack with the other speedsters! They didn't stand a chance, I laughed to myself. I'm winning this race. The usual suspects were all there, guys I recognized from all the other races. It had been a long time since I did a running race, it's been pretty much all triathlons lately. I was pumped!
The gun eventually goes off and 10 of us quickly break away from the pack. It was a strange feeling... the gap was pretty big from the rest of the field pretty much off the hop. The first stretch kind of ran up a slight incline and around the block. I hit the 1 km marker in 3:23 and I was still in the lead group.
This is where I started to have some fun. I threw in a 3:05 2nd km and took the lead for a few seconds. The other racers stopped running and gave up in terror. Hahaha, no they didn't, they swallowed me up by the end of the street. But still it was lots of fun, hopefully some photographer somewhere at least got a picture.
The 3rd km we hit the seawall and I clocked in at 3:54. Then it got kind of windy and I backed into my regular pace. Still the field was pretty spread out by now and I ran the rest of the race basically alone.
The 4th and 5th km had me fighting through the wind a bit. I made the mistake of wearing the shirt they gave out for the race instead of my trusty old singlet and it was dragging me down a bit. When I hit the lighthouse, the heat really started to get to me under that shirt. Still, the sensible pace I had smartly limited myself in the early KMs had me reaching the 5 km marker in 18:27. My PR in a 5km is 18:59, so this was pretty fun way to open a 10km race. Portions of races still don't count for me in my official results though...
But going so hard was starting to take it's toll. I was starting to slip back towards that little man on the Garmin that I was racing against. The 6th KM featured my favorite hill from the Spring Classic 5K I ran earlier in the year... I took a 4:14 on that one. Ack, I did not want to see any KM splits that started with a 4, but by this point I knew I was cooked.
I hit 10km on the Garmin in 39:24 and then the little guy took his 24 second lead and gave up. But the race wasn't over, we were now in SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME!! That is to say my Garmin had stopped pacing me, the clock was off and I was running blind. So I started trying to keep ahead of this one guy. He'd catch up and then I'd open up and pull ahead 20 meters. But he took the low road and I took the high road on this one split area. D'oh, I tried to reel him back in but the advantage from taking the shorter route was too hard to overcome so I let him go. I couldn't remember where the finish line was, but I think the course measured 300-400 meters long. I put in a kick at the end and crossed the timing mat in 40:XX. I got my awesome finishing medal and then waited around to watch the other guys finish.
It seems that my strategy on how to win a race might need some minor tweaking...
My finishing time? Don't know, don't care. My age group placement? Don't know, don't care. Did I run hard? I've never run so hard in my life. Was it fun? Absolutely!!
There is something zen about just going in a race for the fun of it and then not even looking to see how you do. I'll look it up one day to be sure, but today is not that day.
Happy Canada Day!
Good for you to go for it.
