Army Ten Miler Race Report
Made my goal of breaking 60 minutes. However, I think it should have been a little faster if the body would have cooperated a little better.
Goal was to really focus on not going out too fast and be somewhere close to 5:50-6:00 for the first mile and then see how things felt. This race has 30,000 runners so I knew it would be tough to control pace as hundreds of runners were flying by. I ran at what felt way easy and relaxed and was happy when I went through the first mile in 5:55. Perfect start and everything felt easy. Now time to start to graduallypushthe accelerator. Started passing people and still feeling very good and relaxed. I was a little surprised when mile two split was a 5:43. It felt easy enough but I told myself to back off just a little the next mile. Still feeling pretty good withlegs feeling good and pace feeling relaxed when I go through mile three in 5:50. Happy with how I feel I deciede to go ahead and push the accelerator a little again. Again, a little surprised but pleased when I hit mile four in 5:40. Feeling pretty good and pumped at this point. However, things went downhill very quickly. Shortly past the four mile mark I got a side stitch under my right rib cage. This was a very sharp pain that hurt with every deep breath. The legs felt great so I just told myself to relax and try to work through it hoping it would go away. When I backed off a little the pain was still there but not as sharp. Mile five was 5:58 with leg still feeling great but if I tried to pick up the pace the pain was pretty severe. I just kept trying to hold on to 6 minute pace and hope that it would eventually go away as my legs still felt good. Mile six was a 5:55 but still the bad side stitch hanging around. Just pushing through the side stitch as best as I can taking shallow breaths since deep breaths are more painful and hit mile seven in 5:57. I am happy I am maintaining sub 6 pace but the stitch is not getting any better in fact it is worsening. Really upset because legs still feel great. Mile eight is gradual uphill and hit it in 6:09, my worst split of the race. Try to really push through the pain as best as I can and hit 6:01 for mile nine. Working hard to continue to push through side stitch as best as I can and manage another 6:01 for mile ten.
So overall happy that I was able to tough it out and make my sub 60 goal with a 59:09 but dissapointed that the side stitch ruined what may have been a sub 58. Below are splits and stats.
1 = 5:55
2 = 5:43
3 = 5:50
4 = 5:40
5 = 5:58
6 = 5:55
7 = 5:57
8 = 6:09 :-(
9 = 6:01 :-(
10 = 6:01 :-(
Finished 155th out of 30,000 entered runners
Finished 7th out of 2016 in 40-44 age group
Our team finished 21st out of 652 teams and 10th out of 40 in our category (teams conissted of adding top four runners times together)
Well, can't complain with the progress! | 