Sunday, April 7, 2013

2013 Cherry Blossom 10 miler - Washington, DC

So a day after the Red Shoe 5k in Ashburn, VA, we woke up around 4am to start getting ready for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler down in DC.  The plan was to drive to GWU, run two miles down to the start, then after the race, run back.  So we get down to GWU and change into our "throw away" clothes b/c the sun has not come up yet and it was in the upper 30's - kind chilly for us down in the south here.  So we make it down to the Washington monument after a brisk jog - probably ran to fast but we were cold as hell.  Hit the port-o-dumps as they were freshly laid out ready for the onslaught of 17k people.  This is a shot of me running to the port -o-dumps...

So after meandering around, stretching, and meeting up with Heather's friends its about 30 minutes to start time.  But of course, i have to piss so I make a run back to the porto pots and they are packed and I mean way packed...so I stand in line and say F it...head back to the yellow corral as I am BiB 1431...get to the correl and I still have to pee....I figured I was not going to be able to hold it a good 75 minutes so I did what any self-respecting runner in my situation would do  - yep piss the pants, its happened before and it probably won't be the last time...so after the kenyans and elite women take off, its our wave and were off.  The first few miles I was feeling good, not pushing the pace and keeping it somewhere in the mid 7's.  I really intended on jogging this one out at a 8 min pace but when the race started I figured I would try to beat my PR of 1:17 that I got back at the Army 10 a few years ago.    The race had us loop around rock creek parkway as well as a few other bridges and of course, the infamous Haynes point which was windy as hell by about mile 7.  I crossed the line at 1:13:06 and coming in 99th out of 933 in my age group (40-44).  By far my best 10 miler in sometime and I still feel I didn't not even come close to running my hardest.  This gives me hope that I can break 70 minutes some day.  However, I have the Manassas runway 5k next saturday and the Blue Ridge Marathon the week after...then its all trail running as I am getting ready for the North Face 50k.  Below is a snapshot of Heather and I before anyone had really shown up for the race:


Below are my stats from the race:

LocationNet TimeClock TimePacePace BetweenTime of Day
Start 10 Mile00:000:43

7:31:46
Split 5 Mile36:3837:207:19
8:08:23
Split 10K45:3046:137:207:198:17:16
Finish 10 Mile1:13:061:13:487:197:178:44:51

Funny thing was, my watch had me at 1:12:47 but the official time was 1:13:05 ???? Oh well, no biggie - the only time that actually matters to me is SUB 70 for a 10 miler.

Below is a breakdown of my splits:

Split
Time
Distance
Avg Pace
Summary  1:12:47.210.007:17
17:22.3 1.00 7:22
27:18.5 1.00 7:18
37:14.8 1.00 7:15
47:04.5 1.00 7:05
57:18.0 1.00 7:18
67:17.6 1.00 7:18
77:25.1 1.00 7:25
87:27.6 1.00 7:28
97:17.9 1.00 7:18
107:00.8 1.00 7:01

2 comments:

  1. Congrats! Very consistent splits! You seemed to push through that wind quite well!

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  2. Thanks...as soon as you turned the corner at Haynes onto the back straight away, it felt like you were running in a vacuum as all the wind died down. I should of taken advantage of that and dropped 30 seconds off my time right there. My first mile was another area where I could of made up time...your time is awesome - 115th in your age group is crazy good.

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