Monday, May 2, 2011

Sporting Life 10K Race Report and April Summary

Given that this race was a training run more than a PR chase I have no pics to share, but I did have a lot of fun anyway! I woke up after a pretty bad night of sleep (this is starting to sound like a broken record, eh?) and was off and running at 6:45am on my way to the Start for the race. I decided to run there because, as stated, this was not a goal race, and I didn't feel right waking up the family just to get a ride in the car. I ran nice and slow, wore a used jacket I'd picked up the day before at a Thrift Store, and had a nice warm up in the process. The distance to almost the Start Line ended up being 6.5km.

I arrived quite a bit earlier than I'd intended (about 7:20am for the 8am start) and so I decided to stand in line for the Porta Potties just in case. The line was massive and I guess they had placed the facilities in different locations to accommodate the different corrals. The last time I ran this race all of the toilets were lined up in one location. Anyway, all the people waiting in line were from more than just the corrals that were next to the Porta Potties and things were not moving very quickly.

At 7:45am, when the PA announcer said all runners had to be in their proper corrals, I wasn't even close to getting into a Porta Potty. I didn't really need to go, it was a "just in case" thing, and so I got out of the line and went to line up in my corral.

As I stood there getting a bit colder than I really wanted to be I started getting a bit worried that I would tighten up too much to run my planned pace (4:17-4:24/km for a finish between 42:50 and 44:00). I wore shorts and a t-shirt, keeping that used jacket on until the very last minute. But my legs, and calves in particular, were getting really cold!

Anyway, the weather was actually ideal - about 10C (50F) with a clear sky and not too much wind. I was ready to run and couldn't wait for the start. Then the time was suddenly upon us and we were running!

Given how my Garmin got screwed up two years ago in this race (measuring more than 600m longer than the course) I was wearing my old Timex and planned on taking splits on that watch as a back up while the Garmin did the auto lap thing. I was a bit concerned that I'd miss the markers, but in the end I hit all of them right on except the 7km marker because it had fallen down. (I was about five seconds late on that one, so no big deal.)

There's not much to say about the run itself other than I tried to hold back for most of it and failed miserably for the most part. This course is mostly downhill and it felt easier to just let things go rather than try and brake with each step. In the process I not only set a new PR for the 10K, but I also broke my 5K personal best not once, but twice! (Unofficially, of course.)

Here are the splits from my Timex, which add up to a few seconds more than the final Chip Time, but I don't know whether I started it early, stopped it late, or both:

1. 4:27.31
2. 4:11.19
3. 4:15.54
4. 4:03.96
5. 4:20.26 (5K split - 21:19.26 and PR #1!)
6. 4:08.33
7. 4:15.93
8. 4:16.23
9. 4:19.57
10. 3:48.69 (5K split - 20:48.85 and PR #2!)

The totals are on my last post, but it's nice to be able to report that I managed to PR by almost 3 minutes on the same course! Had I been aware that I was that close to breaking 42 minutes (final time was 42:04.2) I would have probably gone ahead and done it. The last split was fast only because for most of the race there was this lady who kept passing me, then slowing down, then passing me. She had a strange running form which made her look like she was running on wooden legs and the fact that she kept slowing down right after she placed herself directly in my path started to really irritate me. As she passed on in the last 200m I all of a sudden decided that I didn't want her slowing me down on the home stretch and I put on a burst of speed. I actually surprised myself with how much I was able to speed up. As I said before, I was holding back almost the entire race and I guess that explains it. Although it was a tiring run, like a good steady state of tempo run should be, I know that I can go faster and that is a good confidence booster.

Also, even though I was taking my splits on the Timex I really had no idea what my average pace was. There were so many runners around, and so many pot holes to navigate, that I never actually got into any sort of running groove where I could think about that kind of stuff and do the numbers in my head to figure out how fast I was running. I suppose that's not a bad thing or I might have slowed down even more to get into that 42:50 - 44:00 space that I'd intended to finish in.

Oh well. A bit too fast in the end, but I'll take it! Afterward I was picked up by my lovely wife and oldest son, who brought me a dry t-shirt and sweatshirt so that I wouldn't freeze, and we were off for a busy day of baseball practices and celebrating my Mom's Birthday! All in all, a terrific day.

As far as April goes, I'll just post a screen shot from Garmin Connect and say that it was my second highest monthly mileage ever:


May will be a bit of a race/recovery month if all goes well. In two weeks I am running my Spring goal race, the Toronto GoodLife Half Marathon, and really want to do well there. After that I think I will give my legs some time to recuperate before diving into marathon training in early June.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Nelly said...

Wow, awesome job! Setting a 3 minute 10K PR on a run where you were trying to keep it as a "training run" is awesome! Sounds like you are basically back to normal now!

May 2, 2011 at 1:22 PM  
Blogger Ace said...

Wowser, nicely done. PR, prep for goal race, and some nice monthly kilometerage? numbers. Looking good.

May 2, 2011 at 11:10 PM  

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