Sunday, January 18, 2009

Frosty's Freeze 10 Mile Race

Had a good race today. 1:11:00 even. 7:06 pace. Felt Great most of the race. Challenging course with hills, but great weather and Sun. A 10 Mile Race PR, but I can't recall every doing a 10 mile race before.

I woke up this morning when Gina got up to close the curtains as daylight crept in our bedroom, about 6:55 (5 minutes before the alarm was going to blare). I almost rolled over and went back to sleep. Instead I remembered it's a race day and for a second I regretted I was racing and wanted to go back to sleep despite a good nights sleep. I got out of bed and turned off the alarm and as I walked to the bathroom I noted that my calfs were tight and my back was sore (using the guest bed till the new matress arrives next week). I am telling you this not to bore you with every detail, but to remind myself that how you feel when you get out of bed is not always indicative of how you will run that day. As I was brushing my teeth I thought about how all the recent races I had done had pressure on them to do well either because that was a target race, racing friends or PRs and it was good to have a non pressure race and I would just take it easy and not push and risk injury. 1:15 would be great but anything longer I would not beat myself up for, unless I ijured myself again.

Jill picked me up and we rode to the race together. She was not feeling good. She was doing a training technique knows as "cut week" to lose weight in a week and she has been drained. She said she was dizzy and was probably just going to run it easy. You hate to pay $45 to run a race and then take it easy, but sometimes that's what you need to do to race another day. We got there in plenty of time and registered and walked around a bit. It was a small race for Denver's standards but the porta-potti lines were long. It was getting warmer and warmer, it was turning into a nice day. The resevior is frozen solid everywhere you look. I told Jill I was going to start slow and try to take a few seconds off each mile and hope for about 1:15 but not beat myself up if I was slower. I saw Jay Survil and talked briefly, he won the 10k run in December for the 40-49 age group. It's a 3 race series. Turns out even Jay wears his shirt in January.

As we got to the race start I got a burst of energy and my body kicked into race mode despite it being January. We wedged up to the front the music was playing (some of the worst pre-race music ever, the DJ was killing me. Macorana is still playing in my head). Most of the racers were doing the 5 mile and most were way over dressed for a day like today.

As the race started, I felt good. Worked my way through the group and settled into my pace group. First Mile was pretty flat and easy. 7:00 pace, I thought it was too fast and I will surely crash in a few miles. I smiled as I thought what I told jill about starting slow and taking a few seconds off each mile. Hard for me to do that when my first mile was that fast.

Mile 2 curves around the lake, I remember seeing the 8 mile marker on the path coming back and thought, wish I was there. I settled into around a 7:05 pace and felt good, my biggest concern was my calf locking up like Denver or the training run on 1/2. I felt like pushing but wanted to sttay comfortable, that pace was perfect for me on this day and this race. Won't bore you with every spllit and every mile, you can check my Garmin data if you want!

A few things of note.

  • Saw Steve Cavali at mile 2.5, 8 and at the finish. He was a volunteer.
  • Saw Steve Fossel at mile 4.5 at a turn around, he was running strong and I thought he was 3rd, but he said there was another pack I didn't see. He finished 8th.
  • Saw Jay Survil on the course a few times, he finished around 1:06.
  • Was talking to Steve Fossel and he was talking to a guy and introduced me, the guy and I both looked at each other like "do I know you". Turns out he was Dave with the Golders running with Sisscors relay team. He had a funny smile on his face when I told him I was with the Pickled Prostates. Told him we missed his team last year.
  • Saw Jill's friend Jim who I met at her Boston Party, he ran about 1:18. He was way overdressed, but said he felt good.
  • My last mile was the fastest, 6:33. I reeled in quite a few runners in the last 3 miles which felt good. I heard some runners gaining on me near the finish.
  • I think only one female was ahead of me and one right behind me but I haven's seen the final results yet. Several in my age group were ahead of me I'm sure. Including Steve F.
  • Jill was a bit down after the race, she ran good, but not as strong as I'm sure she wanted to run, she is on a mission to Boston, but running a race during a "cut week" is very hard. Read about it in her blog entry... http://runwithjill.blogspot.com/2009/01/no-where-but-up.html
  • Thanks to Jill for talking me into doing this race and for driving and for commiting to the race despite her hell week, so I didn't turn off the alarm and go back to sleep instead of having a great day racing.
First race with my Garmin GPS watch and I must say I loved it. It was pretty much dead on with the mile markers and allowed me to monitor my pace the whole way. I just wished I had my heart rate monitor for even more data, not during the race but after. Curious how my heart rate was for that pace and where it peaked. The mile marks were pretty much dead on and the current pace was not as frustrating as I thought it would be during the race. It helped to control me and keep me close to a 7 minute pace. Final mileage on the watch was 10.05 which is probably due to curves in the road and trail over 10 miles.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/1844101

I am encouraged by my results, especially considering where I was 10 days ago after the thursday run where I could hardly stay with the group. I have a long way to go, I need to take about 11 seconds a mile off my pace and go 13.1 go meet my Moab goal, I think it is achievable but it will take some hard work, smart training and staying healthy to get there. Stay tuned...

I will post a link to the final results when they are posted and do a prostate post later. For now it's watching football and drinking beer and basking in the post-race glow of the day.

Results...
http://www.winterdistanceseries.com/Frosty/Results_2009.html

1 comment:

  1. One day soon, Dennis, both you and rock at the same race. I hope it's Boston 2010... but a couple in between would also be nice :). Way to go today....I'm smiling big!

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