This is an annual race in my hometown in the Western North Carolina county of Transylvania.

I've run this race most years - last year being an exception because of a marathon in SC the same day.

The course was new this year and included several more ups and downs than the previous course - and since I've only been running about 25 miles per week I had no real expectations of how this would come out.

Temp at start was 27 or 28 (what happened to autumn?) so tights, underarmour, hat and gloves.  Attendance was down this year for the 10K - looked like only 80 or so.  After the first half mile it looked like everyone had pretty much settled into their final positions - a guy and a girl up front, another guy and a girl some distance back, two guys, then me.

Normally I'm quite OCD about my paces - I know what I want to run and I use my garmin to help keep me on track.  Today, because I didn't really feel a Phat Old Man (POM) PR was in the cards, and because the course was anything but flat, I found myself just running - "run by feel" as some are want to say.  By the time we passed the 2 mile mark, the two guys in front of me had about 200 meters - and would stay this way for the rest of the race.  There was a turn around at about the 3.3 mark so I could tell that the next closest person to me was at least 400 meters back – so no worries of being overtaken.

I ran reasonably hard for most of the race, and pushed the final mile – coming up to the finish line I could see the clock counting up from 45:25 and finished in 45:32 – that’s only 21 seconds off my POM PR.  So right away I’m kicking myself for not paying attention – I coulda/shoulda/woulda.  Then I noticed the distance:  6.07 – OK, that makes a big difference.  Feeling good about my time and my finish position – if they gave a masters award I would have gotten the overall.

Had a nice breakfast out with DW who got out of a nice warm bed to come cheer me on in the freezing temp (didn’t stick around for the awards today – too cold and the line at the breakfast place would be getting long).  Once back home I used the mapping feature on RA and on MapMyRun to check out the course.  Both yielded 6.23 – so back to coulda/shoulda/woulda.

Lessons learned:

1. For me, at least, run by feel ain’t going to cut it.  As Mathew Inman (the oatmeal) says on his post about running – the blerch is there to discourage you.  I need to constantly monitory my progress to give me incentive to push, push, push.  If I run by “feel”, I’m going to feel like slowing down.
2. Garmin’s can read short just as easily as long. 

All in all a good race.  Even if I had been monitoring my pace 21 seconds is a lot to make up, and with the Garmin being off by almost 300 meters I would have thought I was off way more than that until too close to the end to make up the difference.

Well, there are two ways to run by feel.  You can run by what feels good, and you can run by what feels bad but in the right way.  That's what tempo runs in training are ostensibly for--to get used to the effort level you could sustain in a 10k-10 mile race... but it seems like you did well anyway.  I still don't believe in monitoring the Garmin over your own pace sense, but you have to be in the mindset to push hard!

 

Nice race in any case.  Don't be down on yourself, it's a good lesson.

Agree - there really is no right or wrong - what works for one isn't right for others, and what works one day might not the next.  And am actually quite pleased with my effort here - it was a tough course, and I hadn't been training much, and certainly not this as a target race.

I think you did really super good!  Congratulations for such a fast time!

Sounds like a great result considering you didn't have a lot of competition out there to push you!  

Zelanie,

Oh, I wish that were it.  

I think for pure racing the biggest obstacle (OK, one of many) is that at my age (62) I just have a problem when that nagging question comes at around mile 4 "Why do you want to hurt more than this?" I just don't have the right answer anymore.  LOL

By the way, nice race yourself today, and good running in your upcoming half.  You going to wear the Blerch in that one too?

Nice run at any rate.

Great job! Congrats!

Running by feel is one thing, racing by it is in another hemisphere!  Having said that, you were not that far off.

That was an excellent time, blue! Congratulations! I can't wait to see how you enjoy training for Boston. The thought that I was training for that one particular race kept me pushing to achieve my best. I'm sure it will be the same for you. You will rock Boston!