Strider's Series 10k. Perhaps a better name is Sadist's Series 10k. The first half was very ugly, the second half was generally fast.
It was cold on arrival at 8am; just 22 degrees according to my car. Warmed up 4 miles around the neighborhoods near Dee Events Center. I avoided running the course during the warm up. I was already familiar with the first couple of miles and I didn't want to know what lay beyond that. From Paul's profile, I only knew that it would be ugly.
By start time, the weather had warmed a bit and I went with shorts, long sleeve shirt, gloves, and headband. It was the right call for me. Fortunately, the pace at the start was reasonable. No one seemed to have any illusions about trying to make a big early move. It was a solid pack of lead runners up ahead of me and I tucked in behind Dennis Simonaitis. The first mile had one notable climb coming out of the Dee Events Center parking lot, and then some flat. Split was 6:01. The first big climb begins early in the second mile. I felt pretty good on the climb, but kept it conservative. Opened up a little on the downhill. Split was 5:54. The third mile climbed and climbed. Split was 6:40. I lost sight of the leaders and focused on Dennis up ahead of me. I thought maybe I had a chance to catch him, until I realized that he was just executing a strategy; when the course began to descend, he took off like a shot and started hunting down runners on his way to 5th. Well done. With Dennis gone, I focused on Lion Gallegos. The fourth and fifth miles are actually great; a very runnable downhill grade on long, relatively straight roads. Fourth mile was 5:33.
At the end of the fifth mile my split was 5:25. At that point, the I was gaining on Lion as the Dee Events Center also came into view. Unfortunately, Lion followed some kid who was not in the race into the Dee Events Center parking lot. There was a cop right there at the turn and the cop didn't even say anything. When I got to the turn, I saw the course marker arrow pointing east (uphill), but Lion was running north. I stopped briefly, asked the cop if Lion was going the right way or if I was supposed to be running uphill and the Cop kind of shrugged and said the race goes uphill and didn't know why "that guy" (Lion) was going that way. (Well . . . maybe it's because you didn't correct him, officer?) So I yelled to Lion and waved him back on to the course, having taken over his place in the mean time. I debated whether it would be more sportsmanlike simply to wait for him to catch up to me than to keep running, but I was at the bottom of this hill and I just wanted to keep running. It's not like the race victory was on the line, but I did question whether I was making the right call.
The rest of the race was uneventful, except that I managed to continue running in control and feeling pretty good. Last mile, with the climb, was 5:47. My Garmin 305 calculated the distance at 6.35. I know others had measurements between 6.25 and 6.3 as well. I guess I blew running the tangents.
Overall, not a bad day of racing for me. I am still racing a tier below the top runners (many of whom are our fellow bloggers), but I am glad to be competing against them and I look forward to improving. My effort overall was a little better than in the 5k. I felt more in control of my race today; probably because the 5k doesn't give you the chance to do anything but hurt. The hills were not fun, but everyone had to run the same course so no one had it any easier than anyone else.
It was also another strong showing for the Wasatch Racing Team and the Fast Running Bloggers, a few more of whom I got to meet today. Congrats to everyone. | 