Greg's Running Blog

I ran a 10K race last Saturday. Well I actually ran an almost 10K. The course was supposed to be 6.214 miles but it ended up being only 6.05 miles. That is what the measurement was on my Polar RS800cx with the calibrated footpod and it is the same measurement that I got once I uploaded my logged GPS data to mapmyrun.com. It’s also the same distance the winner of the race measured with his Garmin 310XT.

When I manually mapped the course on mapmyrun.com it became clear where the discrepancy came from. Whoever mapped the course mapped it on-line and got 6.19 miles for the distance which is a lot closer to the 10k than the actual distance we ran. The problem is that auto routing when it’s set to follow roads will pick the middle of the road for the distance. If a race is mostly runs on long segments of straight roads it is not a big problem. But this particular run ran through some winding and turning residential roads that were long stretches of curved roads. On these sections the distance ran was significantly lower than the distance estimated as we all ran on the shortest line at the inside edge of the turns. This is why you have to actually ride the course with a calibrated bicycle on the shortest path to get it certified. This course was not certified so I can’t really say much about it, it was close enough.

The race was the 29th Azle Lake Run 10K. It’s a small race with few participants, this year just shy of 50 runners in the 10K, 11 runners in the half marathon (new event) and a bit over 100 in the 5K (new event).

I had several goals for the race:

1. Finish in the top three for my age group. Considering that last year there were only 39 finishers I figured it would be an attainable goal.
2. Finish under 40 minutes. I ran 40:55 a month ago on a much hillier course so I thought I had a pretty good chance at breaking 40:00 this time. It would have been a first.
3. Run downhill smart and fast. I’ve been struggling with the downhill segments before by not letting loose and losing a lot of energy. I really wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to make that mistake this time.
4. Don’t go out too fast, shoot for even splits. So far on every single race I have ran I ended up with positive splits. I fade towards the end and I have a hard time keeping my pace up.

Weather was pretty good for the day, considering it’s May in Texas. It was around 60 degrees, full overcast with a pretty good amount of humidity but luckily no wind.

Start was pretty uneventful; there is really not a huge crowd when you only have about 60 runners starting at the same time. The Half Marathon and the 10K started together while the 5K started 15 minutes later. There were some pretty solid half marathon runners and some pretty fast paced 10K runners at the beginning. Start was also downhill for the most part so pace was pretty fast.

First mile was 5:58.

By the second mile I finally slowed down and got into a groove where I could run my own pace. There was one guy breathing down my neck that was a bit annoying and eventually he passed me by which I didn’t mind as I finally got to run my own pace. My chaser just became my rabbit.

Second mile was 6:13.

During the third mile I started seeing several younger guys in front of me who clearly went out too fast early on as they were fading pretty badly. I started to reel them in slowly but surely. It was actually a lot of fun to pick them off one by one as me and my rabbit passed them by.

Third mile was 6:23.

At mile 4 the half marathon and the 10K split up. My sole rabbit, “Mr. wheezing guy”, went towards the half and I took the right turn onto some crappier quality residential road. All of a sudden I found myself alone with no one in sight. It was a long stretch of road with a pretty good climb and not one person in front of me. This is where I really started to feel the pain and the difficulty of running by myself.

Mile 4 was 6:24.

Up until this point my pace was all alive and well and I felt pretty good about my run. I was a bit concerned that I might have gone out a bit too fast early on and I was wondering what kind of toll it would take on me. I had two more steeper climbs ahead of me and my pace showed it. Running with no other runners in front of me I took a quick glance back and there was only one guy in my vicinity but he was a good 45 seconds back. He was one of the guys I already passed so I knew that there was no way I was going to give 45 seconds back on the last mile and a half. I also asked one of the marshals at the turn how many were in front of me and she said there were 3. I was bummed out that I was going to miss the podium finish in the overall. None of the 3 was in sight, I wasn’t even close.

Mile 5 was 6:29, the first split above my target pace.

During the last mile we ran into the 25 minute finishers of the 5K race. Their race started 15 minutes after ours but ended at the same finish. It was a bit difficult to pass them at times and I really don’t think it has helped my pace to be surrounded with all these “slow runners”. A girl in front of me was asking someone how much further the finish was. I glanced at my watch and I saw we had 0.4 miles to go. As I passed her I told her that it’s 0.4 miles to go. I wasn’t ready to start my final kick at this point I thought I’d wait until the 0.2 mark to really go for it.

Mile 6 was 6:30.

We took our final turn towards the high school track where, based on the map, I assumed we’d have a half a lap around the track to the finish. I started picking up my pace and as I looked up there it was; the finish line that is. I was a bit confused as I didn’t realize it was going to be this close. There was no track in sight and the finish was right there in front of me. I did a 5:00/mile sprint at the end until the finish and stopped my watch.

After talking with the other guys we concluded that the course was short and I probably didn’t do as well as I thought. My monitor indicated an average pace of 6:25 but that included 30 or so seconds of rest after the finish so I had to wait for the official time. I knew I beat 40 minutes just simply based on pace but I didn’t know by how much.

Official finish time was 38:08, a new PR. If I extrapolate it up to the correct distance it would be 39:11 6:18/mile pace which is still a new PR and under 40 minutes. Actually I think I could have kept up the 5:00-5:30 pace for the missing 0.15 miles so it would have been probably a tiny bit better than that.

As they told me on the course, I finished 4th overall and I got 2nd in my age group, there was a 32 year old guy who finished 3rd with 35:31. He was over 2.5 minutes faster than me, there was no way I could have beat him. Not this time at least.

So how did I do in terms of goals? I did finish in the top three for my age group which I’m pretty happy about. I love to leave the races with some hardware.

I also beat my goal of 40 minutes. If you look at the pure time I beat it by a long shot. If you consider that the course was short I still beat it by a decent amount and I totally killed my 40:55 from a month ago.

If you look at my pace graph I almost recovered all the speed lost on the inclines on the declines. I felt really good and really fast on the down slopes. Every single one of them were under 6:00 pace. I feel a lot more confident on the downhill now than ever before.

As for my last goal of getting to negative splits, well that didn’t happen. I went out a bit too fast, the second half had some climbs, there was a lot of lonely running and finishing with the 7:30/mile 5K crowd did not help much. But it is what it is and that elusive negative split is still out there. One of these days I’ll reel it in!