Starting off with the good stuff ... here is a pic of the gang after the race ...

 

 

 

It was so great getting to meet up with fellow RAers, wow, a nice bunch online and even nicer in person.  After the race on the way back to Dayton I got to stop and have lunch with dg!!  She even treated for lunch, how cool is that!  I know she really wanted to run the race but I'm glad she did the smart thing and decided not to do it after all especially since hills have been giving her problems.

 

I ran the Crim 10 Mile Race up in Flint MI on 22 Aug as part of a marathon building training for the Air Force Marathon coming up on 19 Sep.  In short I ran 1:14:14 (7:26) and finished 17/626 AG, 152/3920 gender and 838/8195 for the top 3/4/10 % respectively.

 

The details ... I had a crappy 5 mile race after having a crappy training week due to a TDY and major lack of sleep back at the end of July.  Since then I had been recovering from some rt achilles issues.  I was still able to run but only at easy paces, no speedwork.  The last two weeks or so of running have gone really well so I thought I'd test it out but stay conservative and shoot for a 1:15 (7:30) for the 10 mile race.  When I found out that the wx was going to be awesome (for Aug) for the race I thought I'd try for 7:25 pace (1:14:10).  What I didn't know about were the extensiveness of the hills!  The night before I did look at the elevation map and realized that there were hills at the 1, 2, 5, and 8 mile points roughly, more on that later.

 

My strategy was to break the race into 3 parts, the 1st 1.5 mi, 7 mi, the last 1.5 mi.  My pace goals were

.5 mi @ 7:40, 7:35, 7:30, then 7 mi @ 7:25, and finally .5 mi @ 7:20, 7:15, 7:10 and push if all was well.  My bottom line was NOT TO GO FASTER than 7:15 until the last .5 mi but I would reassess at the half way point.  I even wrote it on my hand.

 

I had read recently to be more aggressive with the warm up and I decided to give it a try, I warmed up for 1 - 1 1/2 mi with several minutes at about 7:30 pace. In the past I would only do striders at the goal pace and that is why I usually give myself a little extra time to warm up the body to the goal pace which I still did during this race but didn't need to do it.

 

I started off conservatively, holding back like I wanted.  Then the second half mile was a little slow but I told myself not to worry, it was partly due to a slight hill and there's still a lot of race to go, just stay comfortable.  The 3rd half mi came and I felt great, back on pace.  I kept shooting for 7:25 but felt extremely comfortable.  Around the 4 mi point I'm thinking this is so mine!  But still reminded myself that there was still almost a 10k left.  I hit the 5 mile point and realized things were still going well but before increasing the pace I would get past the hills which went on for almost a mile, they even named them the Bradley Hills which is never good when they come with a name!  I got to the sixth mile point and settled in after catching my breath and without realizing it I kept increasing the pace.  Instead of keeping the pace at 7:15 or above it was clear that I was too conservative in my pacing and my new "do not go faster than" pace became 7:00, until the last push that is.  So, here is where not really knowing the course will bite you.  Again I knew there were hills at the 1,2,5,8 mile points BUT I was thinking that the big hills came at the 8 mile point, not the 5 mile point like I thought.  So when I got to the 7 1/2 mi point I kept holding back in preparation to attack the hills thinking they were going to be twice as bad as the Bradley Hills.  I get to 8 1/2, I'm thinking hmmmm, I get to 9 mi by my garmin but miss the 9 mi marker and I realized that the big hills were at the 5 mi point and not the 8 so I've only got about 3/4 of a mi left and while I did pick it up in the end, I wasn't going to gain back a whole lot of time so I didn't go all out since I knew I was going to meet my goal anyhow.  And this wasn't my goal race and I still have a 22 mi run a week later.

 

Splits:

3:49, 3:49, 3:42, 3:40, 3:44, 3:41, 3:41, 3:39, 3:36, 3:34, 3:51 (Bradley Hills), 3:37, 3:41, 3:35, 3:35, 3:43 (hill), 3:36, 3:37, 3:32, 3:34, last .14 in 53 sec (6:23).

 

The water stations were inevitably on the opposite side of where I was running so there was some definite weaving going on and there were a lot of turns on this course and very rarely was I able to take the turn very tight so the combination of the two added almost a minute to my time and .14 mi to the distance.  I'll be a lot more careful during the marathon.  I did end up with over a minute negative split and that was with the Bradley Hills being in the second half!  (37:39) (36:35).

 

All in all it was a great race with great support and I'd rather be on this side knowing that I could have run a 10 mile race (without the hills) a few minutes faster than to have either gone out too fast and bonked or not be able to at least run sub 1:15.

 

If you made it this far, congrats

 

One more long run and then it's taper time!!

 

Amie

 

P.S.  I ran a two mile intramural race on Tuesday after the 10 miler and even in the heat (80 deg and sunny) was able to comfortably pull off a 12:52 (6:26)!!  I'm hoping that a peak is in my future timed well with the marathon!!

Dang, you're fast!  Congrats on a great race and on meeting some of the RA gang.  Thanks for the RR and the picture!

Amie, like the others I can't wait to see what you'll do in your AF Marathon. I'll definitely be looking up the results for that one. You are a very fast runner, and I can see some awards in your future when you're officially in the "Masters" class.

 

By the way, a guy in my running club was on a real rant the other day about how the Crim course is "long." My Garmin also reads it that way, as each mile marker is a little bit farther away from when my lap/distance alert goes off, for a total of just over a tenth mile difference by the end. I always figured this had to do with some inaccuracy of the Garmin on a course with a lot of sharp turns, but maybe it really is slightly long (that's still only 1% error).

 

Thanks for writing this excellent report, and keep up the good training work in what seems to be a very busy life!

 

(By the way, I hope you all notice who's sitting there with a beer in each hand. )

Sweet Race RS!!! Thanks for the RR

Wonderful racing Amie and great report! Thanks for sharing the details with us. You are in fine form and will no doubt blow past your initial time thoughts for your marathon in September. I'll be cheering from here and await the news. You are running smarter indeed---Ms. Speedy. I am just glad you are in a different age group! 

Brava!

Thanks everyone!!  It's hard to believe it was already a week ago and now I'm done with the 22 miler (yesterday).

 

Yes, everyone keeps their fingers crossed for good wx (cool temps) for Sep 19th!!

 

Hopefully Doug ... that's the plan, starting when I was between 34 and 35 I began starting the masters category but of course knew we wanted to start a family too.  So with two kids behind us I'm hoping to continue again on the path to getting faster in prep for next June when I turn 40!

 

BTW for those that don't know, when I was 34 I started chatting with littlerockgm from coolrunning and he invited me into the boomers forum and that's where I've stayed ever since!

 

Thanks again for all the comments and well wishes!

Amie

Wow!  Look at those stats - AWESOME!  And this wasn't even your "all-out" pace!  Great job, Amie!  You are running so well, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how you do at the AF marathon.