Friday, March 25, 2011

St. Patty's Day 10K Race Report

Hey all! I know its been awhile since I posted and I apologize. The last couple weeks have been so busy, which is always I guess. Things have been pretty typical. Biking on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sundays. Runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The only real difference was last Saturday when Meg and I ran in the 10K in Manhattan for St. Patty's Day.

I had been dealing with a stomach flu a couple days before, so I wasn't sure how it would go. I talked to Kory and we thought we could go around 33:30. I thought that would be pretty good considering I haven't really done any fast runs in a long time.

During my warm up, I felt pretty tired and wasn't too sure on how it would go. When the gun sounded, Kory and I were off. We had a few people that we knew were going to be pretty fast, including last years winner who had run 32:30 previously. We had your typical couple guys who went out way too fast in the first few blocks, but weren't really worried about them. After a half a mile it was Kory, last years winner and myself.

We cruised through the first mile in about 5:12 and to my surprise I felt good and the pace felt easy. Kory and I flanked last years winner on both sides as the wind was coming from our right side and wasn't really affecting us. We passed the two mile in another 5:12 mile. As we rounded the turn at the 2 1/2 mile mark last years winner put in a little surge, but we were quick to catch back up as we started to go up a hill. At the 3 mile mark we were still maintaining pace and were at 15:40. We were started to drop the other guy and at this time I realized that if we kept this up, we were going to run pretty fast.

We blazed past the 4 mile mark as we came to the downhill portion of the course. We were at 20:50 at this point. We flew through the middle of campus and Kory started to pull away a bit on the downhill leading to Manhattan Ave. I was able to pull him back in as we turned right and headed back toward the park. With a little over 1 mile we had dropped down to about a 5 minute mile. We were really starting to push at this point and I could hear Kory and myself breathing hard. Neither of us wanted to give an inch. When the 6 mile mark came into view I told Kory to go if he had it in him. He put in a little surge and I didn't feel like I wanted to sprint it out with him. We finish a mere 4 seconds apart with Kory running 31:59 and myself at 32:03. It was a great effort and much faster than either of us had anticipated. It was a 30 second Pr for Kory, so I was really excited for him.

Then I was off to cheer my wife on. She came around the corner with only a straight away to go and I looked at the clock. It was in the low 41 minute timeframe. I urged her to go for under 42 and she sprinted past another racer. She crossed the finish line in 41:50 a 30 second PR for her as well!!! Good enough for 3rd overall in the female division!

Since the race, Kory and I have had one more really good workout. We did a 6 lap increasing pace run at Anneburg park. We went for about 6:20 a mile pace down to 5:20 pace the last mile. Finish 10 miles in 57:43. Great workout!! I told Kory that I felt like we were like Rocky and Apollo in the the Rocky movies, always going at each other, pushing each other to be better.

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