My coach though it would be a good idea to get in a short race and open things up a bit and see what the old engine has got. Really....a 10K....I haven't run one of those in years. I agreed and signed up for this "flat and fast" 10K.
Now I was thinking like 38:00 minutes would be a good target but no....coach prescribed 36:30....really....mid 5:50 pace we'll see.
As I rolled into the car this morning to drive up to Snoqualmie it was cool and cloudy....wow...perfect weather. As I headed east up into the foothills the rain started falling on the windshield. As I arrived at the race site the rain was steady and the temps were in the mid 50's.
Normal routine stretching, and 20 minutes of running and on with the race number and glasses and to the start line.
This is a small local race but there were some seriously fast dudes at the start line. a half dozen of the fastest Club NW guys, a handful of Team Oregon XO speedsters and Uli Steidl (Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier). The 5K/10K races started together so it was tough to know who was running which race.
I started out fairly comfortably. Moment of truth, mile 1 split 5:53. OK coach...I'm off at your race pace, that was the highlight of the race. Things started to slow from there...mile 2 was a 6:00. At roughly 2.5 miles the 5K and 10K splits and the 10K guys hung a left. OK the reality things weren't so bad as everyone running near me hung a right, the bad news was I was in no mans land. I was at the front...well off the front of the second group in the 10K but the lead group was, well..., way ahead.
At 3.5 miles I saw the lead group coming back from the out and back section and they were moving. By my count I was in 10th place.
As I made the turn onto the final straight, I started to feel warmed up, unfortuantely I was warmed up for a marathon not a 10K. As we headed down to the finish a couple of "young" road racers who had been bird dogging me sprinted past. I hit the line in 38:20 by my watch... sweet... right near my target time...sorry coach. I think I finished 12th or so.
I miss the days of being able to cruise through a 10K in 31 minutes and I'm not sure I'll every get back to those days but look forward to getting back my speed in the years to come. As next year will be only a single Ironman year and I'm hoping to focus on shorter races and run cross country in the fall I hope that I can find my speedy race legs again (at the age of 40 no less).
Next up Escape from the Gorge Olympic Tri in early September between now and then lots of Kona training.
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