10 miles - 1:06:01
There were a lot of people at this race! Hectic to say the least.
After a 9 hour drive, we finally arrived in our Nations Capital. We pulled into the Holiday Inn where we met up with family members who drove up from NC. The mission for the following day (Saturday), was to get to the Armory and pick up our bibs & packets & then go site seeing. After some minor issues with some of us not being assigned numbers, our problems were squared away & it was on to the Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, Reflecting Pool, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial and Finally the White House. At this point, and many miles of walking later, some of the younger folk in our party were starting to flounder a bit ane we knew it was time to get back to the hotel and relax before the early am start. My brother-in-law who recently just came back from a tour in Afghanistan, had his own idea for relaxation and convinced me to go to the Hotel bar for a tall glass of Guiness and conversation :) I was primed up to race!
5am rolled around with a blink, and my wife who has only run a 5k previously was ready to roll. Some coffee, bananas and Lara bars did the trick for our pre-race nutrition. We pinned our bibs to our shirts, gathered with everyone in the hallway and at 7am started the 2 mile walk to the Pentagon. It was the perfect warm-up for the race, or should I say cold-up...... it was chilly! After arriving in the South lot of the Pentagon, we started to get nervous with the size of the lines and how far away we were from our starting corral. Long story short, last minute, the security people pulled back the barriers and we were able to run over to our starting wave and get the party started.
I have never run in a race that has had well over 25,000 people before and after our cannon blast start, found myself frustratingly weaving through runners, up on sidewalks, in the grass, shooting the gaps and generally not being able to find a groove. This trend continued throughout the whole race but was very evident in my times for mile 1 & 2. In my head I was struggling with the fact that I was going to have to make peace with the fact that this was going to be a slow go through out. Things thinned out a bit ,but it was packed out there. I am so proud of my wife Amy for taking down her longest run ever and finishing strong! After her new found ITB issue goes away, she has told me she intends on training more and shaving time off of her 5K! I love it. I ended up finishing strong and am proud of my first ten miler.
Split
|
Time
|
Distance
|
Avg Pace
|
Summary |
1:06:00.0 |
10.15 |
6:30 |
1 |
6:52.8 |
1.00 |
6:53 |
2 |
6:58.1 |
1.00 |
6:58 |
3 |
6:35.6 |
1.00 |
6:36 |
4 |
6:33.3 |
1.00 |
6:33 |
5 |
6:29.1 |
1.00 |
6:29 |
6 |
6:31.5 |
1.00 |
6:32 |
7 |
6:22.3 |
1.00 |
6:22 |
8 |
6:16.7 |
1.00 |
6:17 |
9 |
6:21.7 |
1.00 |
6:22 |
10 |
6:09.9 |
1.00 |
6:10 |
11 |
:49.0 |
0.15 |
5:22 |
HERE IS A LINK TO A "CROWDED" VIDEO CLIP OF MY FINISH..... at about 8 seconds you can see me on the right side of the screen in a white hat.
http://streaming.marathon-videos.com/video/Sports/CPUK/2013/Army%20Ten%20Miler/BFL.mp4?start=3393&end=3411
|