I signed up for this race earlier this summer as a nice small fall race with the benefit of not being a half marathon but being more than a 10k. I mostly followed Hal Higdon’s advanced 15k/10 mile race plan. I did all the recommended workouts, but some were slightly shorter than recommended. I don’t consider myself advanced if you hadn’t gathered that by now.
Going into this race, I was feeling less than confident. I have had a lingering head cold (or worse?) that has left me zapped of energy and left most of my speed work less than stellar. It was a chore to get them in especially this past week. I trudged through them though. I definitely considered not going to this race at all more than once. Even the morning of. I guess I have a hard time going to a “race” and not “racing” it.
I woke up at 5:30 and made my way over to Wisconsin White Bear Lake (by myself, hence the lack of photos in this post) which is not exactly a short drive for me. I got there and picked up my packet and surveyed the crowd. I was intimidated by what looked like an impressive field. Lots of running clubs and what appeared to be to me anyway, a lot of really good runners. Looking back, most of them were there for the 20 mile race which times out perfectly for training for those running the Twin Cities Marathon. There were over 500 runners for the 20 mile and about half that for the 10 mile.
I started out strong and averaged 8 minute miles, my goal, for the first 5.5 miles. The course had a lot of rolling hills which were a challenge to me. Somewhere around mile 6 I got a side ache much like the one I experienced at Fargo. It slowed me down a little and from then on I struggled to keep moving. I haven’t experienced such a crash like that before even on training runs. Even the last 2 miles, which I can always pick it up for, were rough. I had nothing left. At that point I just wanted to finish. In fact, mile 9 was my slowest. Not cool.
My A goal was 1:20, my B goal was to beat my time from the Twin Cities 10 mile last year, and my C goal as always, is to just finish. Well, I got my C goal! My time from the Twin Cities was 1:23:29 and is what I consider my first “modern era” race. I was really hoping I could show a big improvement after spending about a year focusing on running and hitting at least 100 miles each month since January. It just wasn’t meant to be.
The results:
Time 1:24:10, 8:25 average
Overall place: 54/264
Females: 20/156
Females 20-29: 8/33
According to my Garmin, here is how the miles played out. (I had to add these by hand because I had Auto Lap set to half miles. I forgot I had it set that way until I was at mile one already. I didn’t mind it though.)
1. 8:20 (Slow narrow start! the first .5 was 4:17, the second was 4:03)
2. 8:03
3. 8:06
4. 7:57
5. 8:14
6. 8:17 (slowing, but not out of it)
7. 8:37 (uh oh)
8. 8:32 (yikes)
9. 8:55 (faints)
10. 8:22 (sad)
I really wished my training this summer, which for the most part was great, would have given me a better fall race. I guess it was just one of those days. Like always, I never regret a second of training or racing even if it wasn’t exactly what I had hoped.
As for any future fall races, the only one on the list is the Twin Cities Marathon Events 5k. I haven’t raced a 5k before so it will be an instant PR! As for anything else, if a 10k strikes my fancy, I may sign up. For now, I want to get back to enjoying running for what it has always been to me – an activity for mind and body and for me. I feel like I started to lose a little bit of that towards the end of the summer. I also want to get back to a more balanced fitness approach that includes more strength training.
