I’m really building up training for a 6 hour race in June. There are benefits to mixing a couple races into the training, but a 10k is pretty short at this point in training. Nonetheless, my run club set up a team to run the Loveland Classic 10k and we needed three people to get the team discount, so I promised to go. Since I haven’t actually raced anything longer than a 5k and this is the closest race that is over 5k, I knew I could throw that into a Saturday and make up the training miles on Sunday.
Loveland is 20 some miles away from home, but the traffic situation can make it questionable as to how long it takes to get there. I’ve done it in 15 minutes up to 45. I gave myself an hour from leaving home to the time when registration opened, and I arrived in 20 minutes flat. Everything was being set up at that point and I was able to check in right away, so it wasn’t terrible, except it was cold. It was supposed to be a warm day, and it eventually was, but it started out pretty chilly. April has been so unpredictable for that around here. I was shivering in my running shorts and long sleeve shirt with gloves. So I went out on the path the race was to be on and started running to warm up.
I think having nearly an hour-and-a-half, to warm up and fuel and hit the restroom was actually a good plan. I was able to really get loose and hydrate and greet my teammates as they arrived. As race time got about 15 minutes out, I ditched my long sleeve and gloves, (which I probably could have left on,) and went the quarter mile out from the race expo area to the 10k start line.
This is an area just off I-25 here in Northern Colorado where there’s a strip mall, an outlet mall, some office buildings, a hospital, and some apartments. There are two little lakes with this 3+ mile recreational path around them which is where the 5k and 10k took place. The 10k started a little way down the path and a few minutes ahead of the 5k and took nearly two loops of the course. The course is flat and about half is on concrete with a lot on gravel and dirt. I was worried about a bottleneck on such a narrow path to start, but there really wan’t a problem.
When the race started I stayed a few feet behind one of my run club teammates who I know runs a strong pace, expecting that she would help me reserve some at the start, as I’m not good at pacing myself early. After about half a mile, I decided I was holding back a bit too much, so I passed her and took off to the sound of her cheering me on.
With my fancy Garmin watch, I kept an eye every couple of miles on my pace, and I really paid attention to my breathing (Something I’ve really been working on.) Going through the finish line area for the first lap I felt fast and my legs felt good and my pace was steady. I looked at the course ahead and had a little conversation with myself about facing another lap saying, “This is what we are here to do, we’ve got nothing else to do. Everything’s good. We’re having a great race. Just keep going,” because running the same thing twice can seem monotonous sometimes. On the second lap, about mile 4, I passed an older guy and put a mental target on the back of another runner who seemed to be going about my pace, thinking if I can stay with him or close in on him, I’ll have a strong finish. About mile 5, I was finally starting to feel some fatigue. I didn’t slow down too much, but I heard footsteps coming up on my shoulder, from out of nowhere I got passed by another guy about my age. I let him go to my left and I focused back on my breathe, instead of my legs, as we turned around a corner to where you can see the finish line. For the last half mile I found some final strength and paced the guy who had just passed me, got up on his heels a bit and we both passed the other guy who I had been reeling in for most of the second lap right as we crossed the finish. I gave that guy a high five and congratulated him for his run. Then I went to go find some fruit and to cool down for a minute before my first run club teammate would finish.
Some two and a half years ago my brother-in-law was killed in a car crash. We spent several days holding vigil in the aforementioned hospital near this race, and I spent some time walking this path around these lakes during those days. The area in the second lap where I got passed is a spot where a dirt access road meets the sidewalk that opens up to see the hospital across the street. This is one of the incidents in my life that has sparked my pursuits in endurance athletics over the past few years. Those memories weighed a bit in the back of my mind. I’m not too sentimental. I don’t believe my brother-in-law is out there looking down on us, but running this race on these paths (where I walked around, trying to get out of the waiting room, to get some fresh air while my family was facing such a horrible situation) now these few years later and how much my life has changed since then and not in a small way because of that tragedy in my family and trying to come to terms with what life should be for me, something felt a little symbolic to be running a race here. As I waited for my teammate I really let myself look back on that again for a minute. Then I got up with camera in hand to snap a pic of my fellow run club member crossing the finish line.
Karla, the run club teammate I started the race with, finished about 4 minutes after I did. We waited then for our third teammate, Sue, (who is awesome, having run her first marathon a couple months ago in her mid 60s.) Though she’s slower than us thirty-somethings, she’s the only one of us three who took home an age group award!
….
The previous Thursday at run club I set a PR on the 10k at just under 52 minutes. That was sort-of race day practice and I had a goal for 50 minutes for the race. The course at the Loveland Classic is flat and fast and the weather was cool and everything just went about as well as I could hope for, and I had a monster run. I kept a pretty steady pace for me, with my slowest mile at 7:45 and fastest 7:34. I turned in an official time of 47:49 to finish 23rd overall. It was just a great race all around. Green Events here in northern Colorado puts on a great event, and I’ll be happy to race one of their many runs again.
The focus is still on the Dizzy Goat 6 Hour race coming up in June. I’ve got some heavy training weeks between now and then. My running is strong right now. I’m really confident. I can’t wait to see how much I can get out of this body of mine.
All photos by Green Events, posted publicly on Facebook
