Notes
Striders 10-K. I got up a bit early and used TP Massage Ball to work over my lower back, which had been bothering me a little over the last few days. Weather was a little chilly, but sunny with no wind to speak of. Good racing weather. The competition was the same as last time, with the addition of Dennis. I was not sure what kind of race Dennis was going to run, but decided not to worry him too much and worry about myself instead. Warmed up 2 miles.
For details of the 10k course, click here. By the way, my memory during races tends to be a bit fuzzy, so some of the following may be slightly inaccurate.
Because of all the hills, I wanted to go out rather conservatively, but still keep contact with the lead pack. The pack accomodated this by going out quite slow, so I found myself right up front without expending much energy. There was about a pack of 6-10 during the first half mile, which thinned out to a group of 4 by the end of the second mile: myself, Joe, Corbin, and Bob.
The third mile featured a very large climb (~300ft) that kicked my butt, and made me go anaerobic. This worried me a little, as I have done zero anaerobic or V02Max training (besides the 5k race). Fortunately, I stayed close to the leaders through this stretch. At the 3-mile point (18:03 for the split), it was Bob and Joe, and then Corbin, followed by me. On the downhill, I recovered a bit and started moving. I caught and passed Corbin by 3.5, and then caught Bob and Joe by the 4-mile point (or so, I can't remember). Traded leads with Bob and Joe during the 5th mile, and at one point I tried a weak attempt of breaking away (I was feeling pretty good still), but with no success. Passed the 5-mile mark still feeling decent, but it's hard not to feel good when running downhill. The last climb with about a mile left took the wind out of my sails, and it was a struggle. Bob had made a really nice move just before that and broken away, and continued to pull farther from everyone going up the hill. Joe was a few seconds ahead of me, and I retained the spread, but felt myself getting weaker as the hill went on. Once we got back to the downhill, I struggled to regain my speed, and Corbin went by me into 3rd place. Corbin soon passed Joe as well, but Bob was a ways ahead. Joe was still in striking distance for me, but I could not close well, and the gap widened a little. Meanwhile, Corbin was still closing like a madman. Apparently he ran a 4:21 indoor mile last week. But Bob's earlier surge had put enough distance on the rest of the field to secure his win without challenge. Bob - Corbin - Joe - Me - Dennis - Someone - Sasha. Nice race everyone.
My final time was 34:47. Mile splits were 5:57, 12:05 (2-mile split -- missed mile 2), 4:58, 5:02, 5:36. Several people suspected the first mile was long, and perhaps the course was a little long (although we all took horrible tangents due to snow/ice), but it's a race, so who cares? This was more like a cross country race in some ways; time didn't matter, just place.
I was pretty happy with this race. I was off my predicted time by about 20 seconds, but the winners were much slower than my predictions as well. Thus, I can assume that the prediction was wrong. In the 5k I was 11 seconds behind the winner; today in the 10k I was 19 seconds behind the winner. Looking at it in this light, I probably ran equal to or slightly better than my 5k performance two weeks ago. I enjoyed mixing it up and racing with Joe, Corbin, and Bob, and I don't feel like I made any strategical errors. My only downfall was not being able to hold it the last mile and finish off the race with a surge. I'm still missing a little bit of the "killer racing instinct" as well, that is required to win 5k's and 10k's. But all things considered, it was a pretty good race for me, and I look forward to the 10-miler.