EAS Run for the Water 2007 race report
Ugh.
I didn't particularly want to do this race, but Karen really wanted people to do it, as a check on the appropriateness of our planned paces. My pace.. was just kinda randomly assigned to me. I'd never really done anything to prove that it could be my pace, because I was out with shoulder recovery when we did our time trial. At first my pace was based on my last 5k, but then when we did our recent progressive pace run and I ran with Robyn, at her paces, successfully, Karen decided I should adopt Robyn's goal pace.
I swear I remember last year we were supposed to run the 10 miler at MGP or HMGP or something.. not our 10 mile pace. But we were supposed to do this race at our 10 mile pace. Which for me was 8:51. That's.. faster than I think I can go. So I was dreading it. Especially since it was a hilly course. So my plan was just to try to stick with Robyn as long as possible, and then when she pulled ahead, try not to fall too far off my pace.
We did our 2 mile warmup, hit the portapotty, then went to line up at the start line. With 9 minutes to go, I happened to glance down at Robyn's shoe, and said "Robyn? Did you pick up your chip?" to which she calmly replied, "No, no I didn't." We calmly waded through the crowd to the street, then ran over to chip pickup, affixed her chip to her shoe, and somehow made it back to the start chute before the race started, with a little bonus warmup and a lot of bonus adreneline.
It took us a while to get to the start line, because it was so congested, but we were able to start running pretty well once we crossed the mat. We dodged and weaved a bit, and Robyn asked if it felt like we were on pace. I said it felt hard, but that I was afraid we were going too slow. And it did feel hard. Within a half mile, we were already not really talking anymore. (Except MattH was running with us at that point, and he was telling knockknock jokes somehow. I could barely summon up a "Who's there?")
First mile marker.. 8:31. Crap. Not Good. We'd gone out way too fast. And I was feeling it already, with 9 miles to go. 2nd mile we hit almost right on pace, 8:53. Then it started to go downhill. Unfortunately not literally, as this is when the uphills started. Somewhere on Lake Austin Blvd, I fell back slowly from Robyn and MattH. I knew it was bound to happen, though I didn't expect it that early. My legs just felt tired, and I was breathing hard. Robyn looked back to find me at one point, and I told her to keep going, as we'd planned, and she did. It was at this point that I noticed how disgustingly, unbreathably humid it was. I wasn't prepared for that.
The next few miles were all getting slower and slower, as we went through the hills. I was dreading the big hill on Scenic, but honestly that wasn't at all the worst of the hills. I thought I sorta knew the course, but it had been a long time since I'd run those streets in that direction, and I hadn't driven it beforehand, and the hills were much harder than I expected. But I soldiered up them. While soldiering up one, I came upon Robyn, walking up the hill with her hands on her head. I knew what that meant.. side stitch. She's been having problems with those lately. I knew she'd kill me if I stopped to walk with her, so I ran by her and said "Catch me!", figuring she would, no problem, once she walked her stitch off.
Up hill, down hill, up hill, down hill. I planned to take my gu around mile 4 or 5, so shortly after the mile 4 marker, I got out my gu in anticipation of the waterstop. Then there was a monstrous hill. THEN there was a water stop. I was panting and suffering from the hill, and trying to down a package of sweet, sticky nastiness before I got to the water stop. I gagged several times trying to eat it, because my stomach just did not want to ingest anything at that moment, but I knew I needed the sugar. Then when I got water, I had trouble drinking it, as we were starting ANOTHER hill at that point. So I had gu stuck in my throat and couldn't get in enough water to wash it down. It was sufferfest at this point, but I kept plodding along, getting ever slower.
Karen claimed the race started at mile 6.. since that's when the hills were mostly over (though there was still the hill by the boat docks). I tried to pick up my pace at that point, and really had only minimal success. We were on Lake Austin Blvd again at this point, and .. we've run that street so many times, it's really hard mentally. Scott passed me at this point (I'm not sure how he hadn't passed me earlier), and he tried to say encouraging things, and he kinda laughed, 'cause I must have looked as bad as I felt. But I held it together, because I only had 3 miles to go.
I had thought the course went back the same way it came out, but then we ran by Veteran's without turning, and I realized I had no idea where we were going at that point, which wasn't good mentally. Right then, the sun came out, and we were running directly into it, and it was a slight uphill. And we ran by Steve and Ruth, so I had to pretend I was doing okay. Right after I ran by then, I reached my lowest point of the race.. I got light-headed, felt like I was going to vomit, and seriously entertained the thought of walking, or possibly going and sitting on the curb and DNFing. But I pulled out the ol' "This is supposed to be hard" mantra, tried to increase my turnover, and kept going.
I did manage to bring my pace back down a little for miles 8 and 9, though not down to goal pace. The last mile was just trying not to walk. I ran by traininglog, and she rang her cowbell and cheered and I just looked at her like I wanted to die (I hugged and thanked her and apologized later). I ran by Karen as I turned the final corner, and I couldn't really even look at her, because I was afraid she'd see in my eyes how very badly I wanted to walk. I ran by xomox and he said encouraging things, but fortunately not the kind of encouraging things that would have killed me at that point (things like "kick it in" or "pick it up, the finish line is right there" would have been bad at that point, because I had nothing left to give).
Crossed the finish line, saw Stephanie right ahead of me, and was so busy breathing and dying that I couldn't even really congratulate her. I just took my water from the volunteer and walked/hobbled so that my legs would keep working.
I looked at my watch, and knew I hadn't PRed. I hadn't looked at my time from the 10 miler last year, but I was pretty sure this was slower. However, last year was a flat course in cold weather. This year was a hilly course in warm and humid weather. And I was just so glad it was over at that point, I didn't care at all. Nor did I care that I didn't even get close to my goal.
Unfortunately, Robyn never did pass me. Her pace went up and down and up and down, depending on how she was feeling, and she finished very shortly after I did, but never managed to catch back up to me. She had problems with the 10 miler last year, too, and we've decided maybe 10 mile races just aren't her thing. It sounds like most people had a pretty rough race. But.. it's over. So it's got that going for it.
We did our cool down (2ish miles) and cheered people in, then went out for breakfast. Well, we tried. We tried 4 different places before settling on Polvo's. Unfortunately, my stomach started to hurt around the time we arrived, and just kept getting worse and worse. I ordered breakfast tacos, but by the time they arrived, I could barely force myself to eat anything. Got home and spent a couple hours in the bathroom. Fortunately, I did drink my Endurox after the race, so I got some recovery stuff in me, but with little food and barely any water for the rest of the day, it probably wasn't ideal race recovery. Ohwell. My stomach is feeling.. a little better now. I ate some soup and bread for dinner, and they seem to be staying put so far.
Anyway, stats:
Goal pace: 8:51
Splits:
8:31
8:53
9:19
9:12
9:35
9:39 (Scenic hill, I think)
9:15
9:05
8:54
9:13
Total: 1:31:40 (9:10/mile)
10 miler in 2006: 1:31:22 (9:06/mile)
Pretty amusing how close I got to a PR. :)
Congratulations to those who participated today, and thanks so much to everyone who was out cheering (especially gmatom and ChrisG, who were out there many places on the course, always cheering enthusiastically).
I didn't particularly want to do this race, but Karen really wanted people to do it, as a check on the appropriateness of our planned paces. My pace.. was just kinda randomly assigned to me. I'd never really done anything to prove that it could be my pace, because I was out with shoulder recovery when we did our time trial. At first my pace was based on my last 5k, but then when we did our recent progressive pace run and I ran with Robyn, at her paces, successfully, Karen decided I should adopt Robyn's goal pace.
I swear I remember last year we were supposed to run the 10 miler at MGP or HMGP or something.. not our 10 mile pace. But we were supposed to do this race at our 10 mile pace. Which for me was 8:51. That's.. faster than I think I can go. So I was dreading it. Especially since it was a hilly course. So my plan was just to try to stick with Robyn as long as possible, and then when she pulled ahead, try not to fall too far off my pace.
We did our 2 mile warmup, hit the portapotty, then went to line up at the start line. With 9 minutes to go, I happened to glance down at Robyn's shoe, and said "Robyn? Did you pick up your chip?" to which she calmly replied, "No, no I didn't." We calmly waded through the crowd to the street, then ran over to chip pickup, affixed her chip to her shoe, and somehow made it back to the start chute before the race started, with a little bonus warmup and a lot of bonus adreneline.
It took us a while to get to the start line, because it was so congested, but we were able to start running pretty well once we crossed the mat. We dodged and weaved a bit, and Robyn asked if it felt like we were on pace. I said it felt hard, but that I was afraid we were going too slow. And it did feel hard. Within a half mile, we were already not really talking anymore. (Except MattH was running with us at that point, and he was telling knockknock jokes somehow. I could barely summon up a "Who's there?")
First mile marker.. 8:31. Crap. Not Good. We'd gone out way too fast. And I was feeling it already, with 9 miles to go. 2nd mile we hit almost right on pace, 8:53. Then it started to go downhill. Unfortunately not literally, as this is when the uphills started. Somewhere on Lake Austin Blvd, I fell back slowly from Robyn and MattH. I knew it was bound to happen, though I didn't expect it that early. My legs just felt tired, and I was breathing hard. Robyn looked back to find me at one point, and I told her to keep going, as we'd planned, and she did. It was at this point that I noticed how disgustingly, unbreathably humid it was. I wasn't prepared for that.
The next few miles were all getting slower and slower, as we went through the hills. I was dreading the big hill on Scenic, but honestly that wasn't at all the worst of the hills. I thought I sorta knew the course, but it had been a long time since I'd run those streets in that direction, and I hadn't driven it beforehand, and the hills were much harder than I expected. But I soldiered up them. While soldiering up one, I came upon Robyn, walking up the hill with her hands on her head. I knew what that meant.. side stitch. She's been having problems with those lately. I knew she'd kill me if I stopped to walk with her, so I ran by her and said "Catch me!", figuring she would, no problem, once she walked her stitch off.
Up hill, down hill, up hill, down hill. I planned to take my gu around mile 4 or 5, so shortly after the mile 4 marker, I got out my gu in anticipation of the waterstop. Then there was a monstrous hill. THEN there was a water stop. I was panting and suffering from the hill, and trying to down a package of sweet, sticky nastiness before I got to the water stop. I gagged several times trying to eat it, because my stomach just did not want to ingest anything at that moment, but I knew I needed the sugar. Then when I got water, I had trouble drinking it, as we were starting ANOTHER hill at that point. So I had gu stuck in my throat and couldn't get in enough water to wash it down. It was sufferfest at this point, but I kept plodding along, getting ever slower.
Karen claimed the race started at mile 6.. since that's when the hills were mostly over (though there was still the hill by the boat docks). I tried to pick up my pace at that point, and really had only minimal success. We were on Lake Austin Blvd again at this point, and .. we've run that street so many times, it's really hard mentally. Scott passed me at this point (I'm not sure how he hadn't passed me earlier), and he tried to say encouraging things, and he kinda laughed, 'cause I must have looked as bad as I felt. But I held it together, because I only had 3 miles to go.
I had thought the course went back the same way it came out, but then we ran by Veteran's without turning, and I realized I had no idea where we were going at that point, which wasn't good mentally. Right then, the sun came out, and we were running directly into it, and it was a slight uphill. And we ran by Steve and Ruth, so I had to pretend I was doing okay. Right after I ran by then, I reached my lowest point of the race.. I got light-headed, felt like I was going to vomit, and seriously entertained the thought of walking, or possibly going and sitting on the curb and DNFing. But I pulled out the ol' "This is supposed to be hard" mantra, tried to increase my turnover, and kept going.
I did manage to bring my pace back down a little for miles 8 and 9, though not down to goal pace. The last mile was just trying not to walk. I ran by traininglog, and she rang her cowbell and cheered and I just looked at her like I wanted to die (I hugged and thanked her and apologized later). I ran by Karen as I turned the final corner, and I couldn't really even look at her, because I was afraid she'd see in my eyes how very badly I wanted to walk. I ran by xomox and he said encouraging things, but fortunately not the kind of encouraging things that would have killed me at that point (things like "kick it in" or "pick it up, the finish line is right there" would have been bad at that point, because I had nothing left to give).
Crossed the finish line, saw Stephanie right ahead of me, and was so busy breathing and dying that I couldn't even really congratulate her. I just took my water from the volunteer and walked/hobbled so that my legs would keep working.
I looked at my watch, and knew I hadn't PRed. I hadn't looked at my time from the 10 miler last year, but I was pretty sure this was slower. However, last year was a flat course in cold weather. This year was a hilly course in warm and humid weather. And I was just so glad it was over at that point, I didn't care at all. Nor did I care that I didn't even get close to my goal.
Unfortunately, Robyn never did pass me. Her pace went up and down and up and down, depending on how she was feeling, and she finished very shortly after I did, but never managed to catch back up to me. She had problems with the 10 miler last year, too, and we've decided maybe 10 mile races just aren't her thing. It sounds like most people had a pretty rough race. But.. it's over. So it's got that going for it.
We did our cool down (2ish miles) and cheered people in, then went out for breakfast. Well, we tried. We tried 4 different places before settling on Polvo's. Unfortunately, my stomach started to hurt around the time we arrived, and just kept getting worse and worse. I ordered breakfast tacos, but by the time they arrived, I could barely force myself to eat anything. Got home and spent a couple hours in the bathroom. Fortunately, I did drink my Endurox after the race, so I got some recovery stuff in me, but with little food and barely any water for the rest of the day, it probably wasn't ideal race recovery. Ohwell. My stomach is feeling.. a little better now. I ate some soup and bread for dinner, and they seem to be staying put so far.
Anyway, stats:
Goal pace: 8:51
Splits:
8:31
8:53
9:19
9:12
9:35
9:39 (Scenic hill, I think)
9:15
9:05
8:54
9:13
Total: 1:31:40 (9:10/mile)
10 miler in 2006: 1:31:22 (9:06/mile)
Pretty amusing how close I got to a PR. :)
Congratulations to those who participated today, and thanks so much to everyone who was out cheering (especially gmatom and ChrisG, who were out there many places on the course, always cheering enthusiastically).