Short version

Time:  38:57 (PR)

OA place:  5/113

AG place:  3/9

Gender place:  5/44

Longer version

On April 7, I ran the Heritage to Hatzic 10k, a tune-up for my goal 10k in 3 weeks. First off, I broke one of my rules in terms of the location of the race, as it was probably about a 75 minute drive to get there, but this fit nicely on the race calendar so I thought I’d give it a shot. I usually don’t even drive to most of my races, unless it’s a destination race.

My previous PR was 40:24 from 2008, and all things were pointed to that PR being smashed, as I wasn’t in as good a shape when I ran my previous PR, and things have been progressing along nicely recently, including my recent 23-second 5k PR.

I got up at 5:30, had breakfast and did the rest of the race morning ritual (if I even remember how the ritual goes), and arrived at the race location at around 8:00 a.m. – about an hour before the start. I really need to my houseguest for being such a trooper for getting up early with me and withstanding the cold and rain to watch me. I got in about a 20-minute warm up jog with 3 strides, stripped off my warm up gear and off to the starting line. I made a last minute decision to change out of the singlet into a tee. I just wish I hadn’t noticed the pebbles in my shoes so close to the start, but luckily they didn’t bother me.

There were just over 100 people for the 10k, and a few more for the 5k. I didn’t really have a set time goal for this race, but I did want to PR, go under 39:00 and go under 38:40 if all the stars aligned correctly. Ok, so maybe I did have a few times goals. But really, looking at last year’s results, I thought I might have to race the competition instead of myself with this one, depending on who showed up.

1 km – 3:39 (5:53 mile pace) – I was waiting a while at the start, so my Garmin went into sleep mode or whatever you want to call it for the starting gun, so I ended up fiddling with it on the downhill start. I just added the variance from my watch time and my chip time to this mile split, so close enough. I went out super-fast like an idiot on the downhill start, trying to stick with the leaders as long as a could and then realized I was going to finish a bit further back than I had expected. Then I remembered that there was also a 5k going on, so I didn’t know who I was chasing. A few times I looked down at my Garmin and noticed the pace was slow, so I tried to pick it up. Then I remembered that I still had the pace set in miles, but the distance in kilometres. I felt like such a fool when I came to that realization.

That’s me in blue, before getting dropped by the master behind me. It looks like I heel strike like a mofo:

2 km – 3:49 (6:09) – Ok, that’s more like it. The race starts to spread out at this point, and I come to realize that this will likely become a solo time trial. We turn into a park and down a pretty big hill on a hard packed gravel path. I can see the 5k leader running pretty much alone way ahead of the pack on the trail at the other side of the park.

3 km – 3:46 (6:04) – The 5k runners turn off, and we exit the park and I can see 5 runners ahead of me. I hope that’s it, since I can’t see the chase bike. There’s not much to see here, just small town suburbs, but it’s pretty flat for this part of the race.

4 km – 3:57 (6:21) – Ok, I spoke too soon. We head up a pretty nice sized climb, and then there are only 3 runners left in sight. I tried to relax on the uphill, and surge at the peak. I ended up passing one of the runners, but can still hear his footsteps for a while. Now there are two runners to chase within my sight.

5 km – 4:04 (6:33) – The two runners ahead are still within sight, but somewhat far away. At this point, I decided to stop staring at my pace on the Garmin and I wanted to focus on keeping them in sight with the hopes that they will fade soon and I could close the gap a bit. A bunch of suburban rollers this split.

6 km – 3:51 (6:11) – I’m still running alone with the two ahead in sight. I try to remain focused here and push a little bit with the intent on making up ground on them. It didn’t work, so they must have picked it up as well.

7 km – 4:08 (6:40) – There was a little bit of a climb here. The most eventful part of this split was going the wrong way when either I misunderstood or the volunteer misdirected me at one of the meeting points of the 5k and 10k. He was able to quickly correct me, so I only lost about 3-4 seconds on that misturn. I could here the runner I previously passed on the hills following me the wrong way as well. We turn into another school near the end of this km and I lose sight of the 2 ahead of me for a bit due to some twists and turns, but I regain sight once we hit a straightway again.

8 km – 3:57 (6:22) – I decided that if I wanted to catch them, now is the time to put in a solid effort, but I couldn’t muster much. The guy behind me must have been fading, because I’m pretty sure I dropped him for good here.

9 km – 4:08 (6:40) – We re-enter the park near the start, and with about 1.5 km to go, we have now have to go up that big hill. I hope that I could catch the 2 ahead, but no such luck.

10 km – 3:39 (5:53) – We come out of the park onto the streets, and head our way back to the school. I start my kick a bit early, determined to close as much space as possible or die trying. We get back to the school for a final sprint around the track. As I go around the last turn onto the final straight, I can see sub-39 slowly slipping away, so I found one last gear and am sprinting pretty hard to just slip under at 38:57. I hung out for a bit while I caught my breathe to wait for the next runner, who turned out to be the one I lost earlier, about 40 seconds back.

Overall, I’m happy with my performance and the nice PR, but I just have to think that if I was able to pull off a 3:39 final km with that kick, I could have pushed a bit harder earlier in the course. I also wonder if I would have been able to hang with the 2 ahead of me, who finished in 38:18 and 38:30 if I had just been able to keep up with them at the start. The problem though was the joint start with the 5k, so I didn’t know who I was chasing. I was thinking of putting in some surges mid-race to try to catch them, but I decided to just take the safer route and run my race and hope that I could still do well in this time trial format. Hopefully for my next race at the end of the month, there will be more people running my pace that I can work off of.

In terms of the actual event, I found it too be well organized and a decently challenging course. I don’t like the joint start, but I guess there are logistical and possibly cost challenges in having a separate start, even if the starting time is different. If it wasn’t so far away, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I’d do it again.

Next race:  April 28 (10k goal race)

Congrats on the PR!  I love your running form (looking good hammering those miles).  Great job!

As to thinking you could've run a bit harder, I always leave the race feeling a tad like that.  I wouldn't worry.  I'll bet you all that wet pavement and raining had you slowing down a bit.  I know I slow down a tad for fear of slipping and falling.

Alrighty speedy!  Nice work and PR!!

Great job! COngrats on the PR!

 

Except he's not landing underneath his body - physics would dictate that he can't land midfoot when it's in front of him like that.

 

Not that I care how you land, B+, because you're still way fast!

One would need a sequence of stills to judge fairly, but in this particular shot you may be right....or you may not be [insert loud scream and horror film piano] moohoohahaha!

Congrats on your PR, way to go!  Wow, that looks like a wet run!  You looked really strong in your photos!

That first photo made me laugh cuz it makes it appear there are a couple of runners with umbrellas.  I know the brellies are probably being held by spectators at the side of the road...but my first thought was "Wow, that umbrella wind drag must really slow their pace down!" 

Congrats on a fast race in a speedy field!  Pace in miles but distance in k sounds like a recipe for major confusion!

Wow you have a lt to be proud of here!!! Awesome job! And this is only a ten up?! Can't wait to see what you do with your goal 10k!