Race for the Chocolate 10K - Race Report

A few weeks ago, as I was looking at Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning schedule, I saw that he called for an 8K-15K "tune up" race on the weekend of Valentine's Day.  I opted not to run the local option (the Sweetheart 8K on Sunday morning) so that I could attend church with the family.  So instead I looked to see if there was anything remotely close by being held on Saturday - Valentine's Day.  I was in luck - there was a 10K being held at a winery in New Kent - which is about an hour from my house.  The race featured a post-race wine and chocolate tasting (which sounded delicious to me) so I signed up, went right back to my training and didn't think much more about it until suddenly....it was a few days until race day!

I had a bigger mileage week this week with 92 miles and knew that I wouldn't taper for the race.  I planned to turn the race into my "long run" for the week by squeezing in 6 miles beforehand and then a few more afterwards to end up with 15 or so.  I tried to front-load the week (mileage-wise) so that I'd have a lighter day on Friday (8 miles) that would allow my legs to recover a tiny bit before the race.  I was hoping to give the 10K a good effort - not an all-out race effort, but 90% or so.   My run on Friday felt sluggish.  The 8:50 recovery pace did not feel as springy and happy and everything-is-rainbows-and-butterflies as I expected and I started to get a bit anxious about how the race would go in the morning.   But I chalked it up to being at the end of a high mileage week and tried not to stress.  I ate my normal pre-race spaghetti the night before, foam rolled and tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Woke up at 5am and got ready to go.  It was cold (in the 20s) and windy, and I opted for capris, a warm long sleeve shirt and a vest - plus my trusty ear warmer headband and mittens.  (plus my favorite invention for winter running:  HotHands hand warmers!)  Ate a bagel and had some UCAN on my drive out to New Kent.   Got there with plenty of time to pick up my packet, use the restroom and then get started on my extended warm up.  Hit the roads and ran 6 miles around the race venue (the New Kent Winery).   I was happy to note that the "easy" pace that I was running was well under 8min/mile and that lifted my spirits - maybe today would be a good day after all!  I tried hard not to think about the fact that I'd have to run almost a minute per mile FASTER than that easy pace on the run.   I was a little stressed about the very strong winds that I encountered and wondered how many miles we'd have into the headwind before we turned, but there was no use in worrying about it now.  It was almost time to race.

Got back to the car, had a gel and some water and used the restroom one more time.  The race was a bit disorganized and the start of the 10K ended up being delayed for 25 minutes or so.  This was a bit frustrating since I'd timed things (nutrition, bathroom breaks, my warm up, etc.) to a 9:15 start and it was nearing 9:45 before we actually were set to begin.  There was also nowhere warm to wait - we were all outside shivering in the cold.  I hopped in place a lot and was very, very thankful for my hand warmers.  Finally it was time to start.  I made my way to the front (which felt weird to me since I hardly ever am in a position to race near the front of a pack!) and soon we were underway.

Mile 1:  (6:45)   Right out of the gate we went down a narrow, rutted (and frozen!) dirt road.  I was trying not to twist an ankle or run into anyone in front of me and was just so happy to make it out of that one mile section in one piece that I didn't care too much about the pace.  We popped out on the road and then I was able to get a better feel for what we were running.  The pace was a bit slow, but most likely due to the dirt road so I just ignored it and pressed on.   I quickly found myself in 3rd place for the women. The first lady was Renee High (Olympic Trials Qualifier from VA Beach) who is super speedy so I knew I wouldn't catch her, and the 2nd gal I didn't know but she opened up a little lead on me in the first mile.   I decided I'd try to reel her in later in the race if I could and practice Sarah's suggestion of "10 hard steps".  I'm trying to get better about competing and not mentally giving up late in the race.

Mile 2:  (6:50)   We were headed straight into the wind on this stretch and I was getting frustrated that I was working hard for a pace that was less than stellar.  I tucked in behind two guys for a quarter mile or so to try and get a bit of relief from the wind but they started to slow so I ended up going around them.  We ran through several traffic circles and I did my best to run the tangents rather than follow the road all the way around the circle like some of the guys were doing!   There was a "water stop" on this mile.  I put that in quotes because it was a card table set up about 25 feet off the road with about 10 cups of water on it.  If you had wanted water, you'd have had to hop the curb, run up to the table, grab a cup, run back and hop back on the road.  Needless to say, I passed.

Mile 3: (6:29)  Somewhere in this mile we got to flip it and head back the way we came - but this time the wind was at our backs!!  The pace picked up and I was stoked to see that a 6:29 split on my watch with no more effort than the first mile.  I still felt pretty good and was slowly closing the gap on the #2 female.

Mile 4: (6:37) And here's where the course got a bit challenging.  We entered the area near the golf course and hit some pretty good rolling hills.  I had planned to take a gel and some water here (more so to practice mid-race fueling than anything else - I wouldn't normally take a gel on a 10K), but there was no second water stop as promised!  There was also quite a few spots marked just with cones and it was rather confusing to try and figure out where the course went.  Thankfully there was a guy and the #2 gal within sight so I just followed them.

Mile 5: (6:28)  We had a section on the twisty-turny cart path of the golf course and then a quarter mile section on deep gravel where I was using every ounce of energy left to pray that I did not turn my ankle!   I tried to pick it up in this mile once we got off the gravel and was happy to see the pace improve.

Mile 6: (6:44)  The 2nd place girl was starting to slow!  Or else I was speeding up.  A quick glance at my watch told me that she must be slowing.  We were back on the pavement, but also back to the rolling hills.  The legs were heavy here and I was feeling ready to be done, but I tried to push a bit to see if I could close the gap.

Mile 6.2: (6:24)  I was closing in by the time we hit the mile 6 marker but knew I was running out of real estate to catch her.  I willed the legs to go faster and powered up the final hills as best I could.  In the end I couldn't catch her, but I was proud of myself for trying!

End result:  41:45, 3rd place Female, 9th overall.  (of 787)  6.29 miles on my Garmin so while I tried to run the tangents, I have some work to do!

After crossing the line I walked for a few paces and congratulated my fellow runners.  I had planned to do a few cool down miles, but ended up helping the 2nd place gal bandage her finger (she'd cut it right before the race started) and by the time we got through with that, I was frigid and the idea of anything but getting in my warm clothes was too hard to fathom.  So I jogged to my car and pulled on my warm stuff, figuring I'd make up the miles later.  Not the ideal scenario, but I was too cold to care!    Grabbed some chocolate and got to taste three of the New Kent wines before I turned into a popsicle and decided to head for the warmth of my car and the promise of a Starbucks coffee on the way home.  I ended up running 5 recovery run/cooldown miles later in the day since I had missed the miles post-race.

This is actually a new 10K PR for me - I haven't raced a 10K in many years and while this wasn't really a true race effort for me, it was nice to set a PR in the process!  It was a good effort, and while not even close to the pace I'm *supposed* to be capable of for a 10K, it wasn't a typical road 10K and I ran it on un-tapered legs at the end of a high mileage week.  So I'm happy with how it went.

Sorry for the lack of pictures on this - my phone died due to the cold so I had no way to take photos!

Total for the week: 92 miles (highest mileage to date)

I've got one more week of heavy training (which unfortunately has coincided with our first big snow here in RVA) and then I start to taper!  I can hardly believe the race is less than 4 weeks away.

Do you usually do any "tune-up" races in your training?  If you do, do you race them at full-on RACE effort?   Do you love or hate the 10K distance?  (I like it more than the 5K distance, but not much more!)

Racing in the Rain - Frostbite 15K report

I signed up for the local Frostbite 15K in order to use it as a training run/workout where I could do some marathon-paced miles.  It's always more fun to do race-paced miles in a race environment where you have the company of others and a great opportunity to practice fueling/hydrating at pace.   I didn't taper for the race, but was hopeful that I'd get to race day and feel pretty good maintaining marathon pace for the duration.  Since the race was on Sunday, I shifted my recovery miles to Saturday and ran 12 miles with my Dad and a friend at a good recovery pace (9:15/mi).    After a good dinner of spaghetti and a (fairly) decent night of sleep, it was time to roll.

Race morning dawned and was RAINY.  I ate my breakfast (english muffin - half with peanut butter, half with cream cheese), had a serving of UCAN, and tried not to stress about the fact that I could hear the rain pounding on the roof.   With wipers going full blast and cars going 45mph on the interstate, I slowly made my way over to the starting location for the race.  It was shaping up to be a very, very wet morning.

A friend of mine had (very kindly) offered to meet me an hour or so before start time for some extra mileage.  I'd wanted around 16-17 for the day, so we were going to get in 6 miles beforehand.  I was so loathe to get out of my nice warm car, but knowing that I'd have company for those miles was a huge help.   Two minutes into our warmup we were SOAKED.  Soaked to the point that we didn't even try to avoid the puddles - there was no point!  We were as wet as we could possibly be.  A cold and damp 6 miles later, I hopped back into my car and used my two towels to dry off and change into my next set of clothes for the race.  I was feeling pretty decent after the warmup, and hopeful that it wouldn't be so bad.  After changing and taking one of my Honey Stinger gels, I threw a trash bag on to shield my second set of clothes until the start and hopped back out into the rain.  I was doing ok until...all of the sudden I could not stop shivering.  My teeth were chattering so hard that I had a hard time talking.  With only 3-4 minutes until the start I just wanted to GET THIS OVER WITH!!

Thankfully, we were soon off and underway.  My friend was hoping to run around the same pace as I was for the first 5 miles and it was wonderful to have him there to help pace me.  We started a tiny bit fast (but not terrible) and I was so cold and wet that it was actually feeling pretty decent to be generating some heat from the faster pace.

Miles 1-4 (6:42, 6:43, 6:45, 6:42)  Miles 1-4 were wet, but pretty close to my goal pace.  Since we'd gotten so much rain overnight there was so much standing water in places that the race marshals had us hop off the road and onto the muddy ground to try and avoid the huge patches of water.  It was definitely a first for me in a race!

Mile 5-7 (6:46, 6:43, 6:56) I was feeling pretty decent at around mile 5 when my friend decided he was going to go on ahead.  I was content to just continue to try and run my pace.  But then...the hills started.  There were some hills on the first half of the course as well, but I think the hills on the back half are worse - most likely they just feel harder because of the fact that you've already run 5 miles (or a total of 11 in my case) and are a bit fatigued.   I tried to take my gel, but only managed to get about half of it in my mouth since my hands were so cold and I was uncoordinated.  By mile 6 I was finding it harder to maintain my pace without putting in quite a bit more effort.  I was bummed we had over 3 miles to go but tried to stay positive and run the tangents.  I leap-frogged a bit with a girl in front of me.  She was in 5th place and I thought it would be cool to come in 5th so I passed her.  But a mile or two later she caught me and by that point my legs were pretty toast.  Mile 7 was a welcome sight but I had a moment of panic when a volunteer shouted out "Only a 5K left!!" and I thought "I think I'll die if we actually have a 5K left" - thank goodness his math was wrong!

Miles 8-9.3 (6:51, 7:07, 6:48 (0.47mi on my watch) Mile 8 was my worst thanks to two big hills it made my pace tank by quite a bit.  I was getting discouraged by seeing a 7:xx on my Garmin and was upset at myself that I couldn't quite find the energy to care about catching the #5 girl in front of me (who I could still see).  I know that's something I need to work on for future races.  I don't have much of a "finishing kick" and I just mentally couldn't turn that switch on today that would encourage me to hunt her down.  It was more like "Meh.  It's nasty out here and I'm struggling to hold my pace - I don't have the extra energy to chase her down.".  And I know that's probably not the best way to be towards the end of the race!   I did manage to pick up the pace when I knew we only had less than a mile to go.  The thought of getting into warm, dry clothes was spurring me on but the legs were definitely feeling the fatigue.  By the time we hit the hill to the finish (cruel, isn't it? We finish on an uphill!), I was toast.  Happy to be done, I ended up at 1:04:31, 6th female overall.    My Garmin pace was 6:49/mi (I had a total of 9.47 mi for total race distance though - perhaps due to the off-roading we had to do in order to avoid all the standing water), but the official average pace per the 9.3 course was 6:55/mi.

A cool down mile and a half in the rain (thanks again to my friend for being there to make me do this - I was sorely tempted to just go to my car and get warm and dry!) and I was done for the day.  My warm clothes felt so awesome and I was so happy to get inside for the post-race awards and attempt to warm up.   I was 1st in my age group and won a ribbon and a gift card to a local running store!

Now that it's done, I have acknowledged that there were some good and bad things about this run.   The good:  I pretty much held my goal pace for this race if you use my Garmin time. (Yay?) I got to practice running that pace in the rain, and fueling and drinking at that pace as well (which was more challenging than I thought!).   The bad:  It was a nasty day.  My clothes and hat and shoes and socks and EVERYTHING was completely soaked by mile 2 and felt very heavy as the race went on.  I was mad at myself for not chasing down the #5 girl, and bummed that I was as fatigued as I was at the end of the race.  And it was tough to swallow that my time was close a minute slower than last year's.   It's hard not to get discouraged when you realize that this pace that feels challenging for 9.3 miles is supposed to be the pace I'll run for 26.2 miles in two months!

I am not yet revising my goal pace, but recognize that I may need to.  I've got one more marathon-paced workout (12 miles at MP) coming up in two weeks and we'll see how that one goes.  I'm hopeful that it goes well and will give me a little more confidence about the pace.  In the meantime, I'm going to try and work on some positive visualizations/affirmations to help try and get my head out of the way.  I feel that mentally (consciously or not) I had already determined that this wouldn't be a great day and therefore I didn't push as hard as I probably could.   I need to get more of that fire in me that helps drive me to chase down those people in front of me when I'm at the end of the race - rather than sit there complacently and run it in.  But!  I am still so very thankful that I'm healthy at this point in the season and am able to run and push the pace at all.  Rain or not, it's so awesome to be out there.

Total mileage: 83 miles for the week.

Any tips for how to cultivate that fire in you that helps you to go "chase 'em down"?  

Any positive visualizations/affirmations that help you wrap your head around a goal pace that feels challenging?  

Mile 1

I didn't get into running until well after college.  And when I started I never expected to still be enamored with the sport almost 9 years later.   From a 2:09 half marathon (9:54 pace), I’ve worked my way down to a 3:09 marathon (7:15 pace) – taking breaks to have my two daughters along the way.   I don’t consider myself a natural athlete. I never expected to love running so much – and yet, I do. I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a few years now, but have hesitated. The pressure to add new content, the work to maintain it, and the inevitable negative comments had made me shy away from it in the past. (That, and the slight worry that the minute I hit "publish" I'd be just tempting the universe to throw an injury my way!) But a tiny voice in my head has been quietly urging me to start – to write and try my best to help other runners who may be on their own journey to become the best runner they can be.

I truly believe that we have vast amounts of untapped potential as runners – and that if we can just get our mind out of the way, our bodies are capable of so much more than we give them credit for.   It’s never been an easy thing for me, this marathon running, but it’s always felt like a worthwhile pursuit. No matter where you are starting from, whether you’ve never run a marathon or you do a marathon each month, with hard work and consistency, I have no doubt that you can improve.

That’s what I want this space to be about: Recording my own journey in the hopes that it might help others along the way to do the hard, rewarding work of reaching their running potential. I don’t claim to have everything figured out - I’m still on the journey. But I’m hoping you will join me.