Park-to-Park 10-Miler

What a great weekend! Time spent with friends, family, two concerts and a race! Needless to say, I am totally beat while I am now writing this but it was totally worth it! That said, it probably didn't make for the best race prep of all time.

Weekend started off with a slow long run with my buddy Craig as we cruised an ez 13.5 miles. Saturday night I did the carbo load thing and went to bed a little later than I should have but Sunday was an easy day so I just did an easy 5 miles and relaxed for most of the day before heading to dinner and the Santana concert at Red Rocks with my mom & step-dad. We were celebrating Rich's 65th bday with the tix that I had bought for him back in June when his actual bday was. It was a great time! Rich's first time ever seeing a show out there, and my mom's first time in 35 or so years!

After about 5.5 hours of sleep though it was showtime. The annual 10-miler in Denver from City Park, through Cheeseman and Wash Parks, finishing on a track at Denver South High School. Heading in to the race I wasn't really concerned about anything other than running a solid, well-paced race and finding out where my fitness was. As for a time-goal, I wasn't real sure where I wanted to be, but I thought that if I could just run within myself and finish somewhere within the 59:10-59:30 range, I'd be happy.

I'm happy to report that the race did go very well and I ran extremely even paced (especially considering how hilly the course was!). This was my first time doing a stand-alone running race since I ran the Rome Marathon back in March. I watched the Men's world championship marathon earlier on in the weekend and got inspired by the Kenyans that threw down such insane times!! It's interesting how motivating a little inspiration can be AND how much you can learn about racing from watching the best.

back to the race: It's always funny to me how much less stressful running events are than a triathlon! No need to worry about the swim, a bike or anything other than double-knotting the flats and toeing the line. In the first 800m or so as I was getting my ass handed to me by about 50 or 60 people as the sprint into the downhill first mile began all I could think about was how small-scale the race really was compared to many of the big events I have participated in in the past; World Championship 70.3 and Olympic distance races, Ironmans, multiple age-group Nat'l Champs, elite waves at giant races all over the country. In some weird way, it put it all in perspective and actually calmed me down and helped me to think rationally. Rather than pushing the first mile, I was more able to concentrate on which piece of the puzzle this 'race' was for me. It was a chance to check my speed, my endurance, my strength and possibly, mot importantly, my focus. I knew the kind of time I wanted to run and everything else was irrelevant. To put this in perspective, I was probably in about 50th place at Mile 1, with 3 women in front of me. I went 5:41 on that downhill mile.

By about mile 3 the field had sorted itself out and I was passing people left and right as I got into a comfortable rhythm. My mile splits are below, and although there is some work to be done to run even more consistently, I was very happy with the progress after only 5 weeks. This was the first race in years where I didn't fall off of my pace and where I actually had the strength to respond to people passing me or put in surges when passing others. Tactically I ran very smart. Internally, however, I was acutely aware that I had run the 35 previous days in a row (almost 9.5 miles per day), and that I had just rounded out yet another 65+ mile week. My Piriformis and Achilles both cooperated and didn't have any pains to complain about at all.

Best of all, I ran a very even race! Went 59:00 for the 10-miles finishing in 21st Overall. 5:54 pace. and the break-down of the front-half vs. back-half was 29:28/29:32. I definitely had to fight through the fatigue in the last 2 miles but my times surprisingly didn't fall off. Here are my mile splits:

Mile 1: 5:41 (dwnhl)            Mile 6: 5:55

Mile 2: 5:57                          Mile 7: 5:46 (dwnhl)

Mile 3: 5:52                          Mile 8: 5:58 (uphill)

Mile 4: 5:56                          Mile 9: 6:01

Mile 5: 5:59 (uphill)             Mile 10: 5:50

The race was a great indicator of fitness and things to work on but the real work lies ahead. Next stop, Rock n' Roll Denver 1/2 Marathon on October 9th!