I'll post about it on my family blog when I have pictures, but I wanted to write about the 10 miler while it's fresh on my mind. Sorry about all the detail, but I want to remember this for next year.
Got up at 5:30 and felt relaxed and ready to go. Ate a peanut butter/honey/banana sandwich before I left and plenty of water and powerade. I rode down to Provo with my friend Sheena and everything went smoothly before the race started. We talked about everything related to running, including race strategy. Sheena got a 7:16 pace in her half marathon in April, so I like hearing about how she does it (being tiny and fit probably helps, but her strategy has got to be important, too). She says she always starts out hard. If she needs to slow down, she can, but she starts out with full effort. This is the opposite of what I usually do. I'm usually very conservative at the start, and if I feel comfortable, I'll speed it up. So at the last minute, I decided I'd try Sheena's strategy this time. Sheena made her way to the front of the starting line (where she belongs), and I hung out about 5 or 6 rows deep into the start. 3,2,1 and we were off.
The riverwoods race is a downhill shot for quite a ways and I was tearing down it. I finished the first mile at just barely over a 7 minute pace. I didn't know how fast I was going at the time (I figured it out after... because the second song on my ipod ended right when I hit the 1 mile mark, and the first two songs together are 7:08). I found myself running next to 2 very fit looking girls and felt comfortable with their pace. I made a goal to keep up with them for the rest of the race. I took a gel that I forgot to take before I started and it's kinda tricky eating those things when you're huffing and puffing and flying down a hill. I did a little leapfrogging with those girls for the next two miles, but by mile 4 the terrain was flat and I pulled ahead for good. I was pleasantly surprised.
I kept a pretty aggressive pace, and was surprised how long I could hold it. I hit the halfway point and took another gel. I wasn't sure if it was necessary, but Sheena said that was her plan so I figured I might as well try it, too! I was also surprised by how few people were passing me. Last year it felt like hundreds of people passed me! This year it felt like less than 50.
On mile 6, a girl who had been ahead of me the entire race, and who I had seen check her pace watch about 100 times, had stopped to walk at the aid station and was coming back to pass me. I asked her what her pace was and she said 7:30. I couldn't believe it. I thought as long as I could keep her in sight, I stood a chance of beating the 8:00 mark. It got hard during mile 7. I wanted to slow down, and that's when all the stuff I've been reading online came into play. I remembered a Runners World article that said one of the things that distinguishes elite runners is that they know how to push through pain (not injury pain, but fatigue and aching muscles and joints). It encouraged me. I could do this, it was a mental game now and I was more than halfway done. I kept telling myself positive thoughts (another tip I had read about).
I came out of the canyon and knew the finish line wasn't far. I was pushing, but was already going fast enough that I couldn't achieve a very distinguishable change in pace. I just wanted to finish hard and keep up what I had been doing. A few people passed me, but I couldn't worry about them. By mile 9, it was all about what I could do. I pretty much closed out the people around me and just focused on my own body. I didn't have it in me to sprint to the end, so I just kept plugging along.
I finished in 1:18:30 for a 7:51 pace! I was elated and very shocked that I beat a 8:00 pace. I never run that fast, and to achieve it in a 10 mile race was really mindblowing. I know it helped that this was a downhill run, and I probably couldn't have done it on completely flat terrain. But regardless, it was for sure a PR for me that I don't know if I can beat again, so I was really happy with the results. Sheena finished in 1:10 something for a 7:07 pace - she got 2nd in our division and I got 6th (also extremely surprised there were only 3 girls in our division between me and Sheena!).
It was a great race and I'm glad I did it, despite the fact that walking down the stairs makes it feel like my quads are being torn out of my legs. My only other race this year is the marathon, and I have zero ambition about time on that one. Just want to finish it. My sis-in-law's dad is a very seasoned runner and marathoner and he says the Park City marathon is awful/hard. He told me, "You can go ahead and take what you think your marathon time is and add 30 minutes for Park City." Wonderful.
So this was my fun race for the summer. I'm really happy it turned out so well!
