I just took a look at the official times and results for the 10k we just did. My official time was 52:13 which put me in 633rd place out of 2580, not bad. In my age group I was 74th out of 147, so just out of the top 50%. Of all male runners I was 410 out of 878, so I cracked the top 50% there, just not in my age group. Weird. My overall pace was 8:24. I am happy.
Yesterday (we had to get up so early for it I almost want to say “last week”) my running partner and I headed over to the Old Spaghetti Factory for the Pints to Pasta 10k. Parking was well organized and we quickly got a spot and headed to packet pick-up. My running partner’s packet was missing, but they quickly got her another number assigned. So far so good.
The course was a one way route from the Adidas headquarters to the Old Spaghetti Factory. Race organizers had many school buses ready to haul us up to Adidas. After a loud (the bus radio was only turned down after we departed the bus) but safe trip we found ourselves 6.2 miles away from our start. The race offered dry clothing transfer which I used for my new race shirt. They made a point of having us use our packet bags for this so that they didn’t have to waste another bag which I thought was great (unnecessary advice for some, of course that is what we would do, but apparently not everyone is on board with not wasting…) So when I got to the drop off I was shocked that they insisted on putting my bag inside an identical bag. I protested but they refused to use my identical bag for the sticker and hurried me on (which for the sake of the 1000s of runners behind me I did, but grumblely so…)
Next stop was coffee. The race was to supply coffee for waiting runners. Turned out all we found were two small empty tureens. We weren’t the only ones. Runner after runner lined up to attempt to tilt the tureen to get some coffee. No luck. Fortunately, we eventually saw a couple of new jugs coming up to the area and we were able to quickly get in line, yay!
The race started in a relatively well organized manner. There were many obviously slower runner lined up at the start line, corkers! But I am sure everyone figured out how to get in front on them eventually. We followed a line for the bathroom and eventually gave up when the line intersected with the mobs at the starting line. Next year they should move post-a-pots away from the start line. But not too big a foul.
We decided to not push the race too much, neither of us figured to set a PR that day. But it was a race after all and what are you going to do but push it. The first two miles of the course were downhill and we all got a great start. I found myself pushing it a bit and passing several people. Our plan to run together only lasted for a couple miles and we lost each other on the bridge. At that point I decided to push it (and so did my running partner behind me somewhere). In reality my pace picked up slightly from the downhill, but not too much and I was able to keep a pretty even pace throughout the race of 8:24.
After the downhill approach to the BroadwayBridge, we had a slight uphill to get to the bridge. Once across we looped around to Naito on a path similar to all the downtown Portland races. Once we got to the waterfront, we all left Naito and got on the waterfront path and headed South. At the end of the west waterfront we took an uphill through a small festival and then headed to the south waterfront district. Quickly through that area we were on our way towards the finish line. I was starting to feel like I had really been pushing it and my HR was really high and the last 20 mins of the race I spent over 180. I made a small effort to keep it under that, but I wanted to finish fast even though at 5 miles I knew I was behind my PR of 49 mins. The last mile I did slow my pace a bit to around 8:40. The last corner revealed the finish line balloons, but they still seemed really far away! What was supposed to be inspirational wasn’t for me at all (same with my running partner)! I looked away and kept going and crossed the line at 52:16. Not bad at all and better than I was anticipating. My running partner set a PR for the 10K and this after thinking she wouldn’t do that well! Congrats!
The after race party was great with pasta and beer (or root beer for those of us who figured 9AM was a little early to drink.) Pasta and beer lines were well organized and they had plenty of table space for us as well as a band. All in all a really good race that was very enjoyable. I want to do it again next year, I do think I’ll be able to beat my PR here. Things to change for me next year would be to bring some water and to do a get before starting. Both I think would help. Music would help me as well. I know I can do it, gotta shave off 30 secs per mile though…
Today I find myself in the midst of a short two day taper, actually all I am doing is a break for the two days. No reason to really taper for this race as I am not planning on attempting any sort of PR and I haven’t really been training other than my usual. My goal is a finish under an hour, should be doable. Weather should be nice and cool for the race and I am looking forward to the beer and pasta!
The last run I did was a speed workout at the track, my usual straights and curves. I felt really strong throughout the workout. I didn’t really push my sprints that much except to pass a slower runner as I approached a curve. I was coming in just over 6 min miles on the straights. I also added a loop and a half through the canyon to cool down. Overall a really solid quality run for the day.
I wanted to do a recovery run last night, but ended up blowing it off with the help of my running partner! Neither of us really felt like doing anything last night, so we didn’t.