I ran the 10,000m and the 3000m at the Potomac Valley Games last weekend, finishing in 47:36.73 and 13:57.22 respectively.
I had entered the 3000m several weeks ago, thinking that it would be an opportunity to update the 3000m time I ran at the Hartford Nationals. A few days before the meet I reviewed the meet schedule and noted a 10,000m was on the schedule - first thing Saturday morning. 10,000m races on the track are pretty rare around here, and this one was both the first race of the morning (a plus) and scheduled on a day with unseasonably cool weather.
This was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up, especially since there was currently no American record for female T36 athletes. I'd run the 10,000 and try to set the standard as high as I could for others to hopefully chase in the future. As for the originally planned 3000? I'd play it by ear.
***
Saturday morning dawned just as predicted - temperatures in the low 60s with low humidity. With the race scheduled to start at 8 am, arriving at 6:45 gave me enough time to pick up my bib and hip number and warm up on the track. Wonderfully, this was one of the meets that allowed runners to warm-up in the outside lanes right up until about 3 minutes before their race started.
There were five entries in the 10,000: me, a guy in his 30s who listed a seed time of 34 minutes and change; and three 50+ men, each targeting a bit over 50 minutes. I expected to run anywhere from 46 to 48 minutes, so I'd likely be solo for much of the race. Fine with me.
We lined up at the waterfall line for the 10000 (me on the outside), and the gun went off. Just like always, everybody dropped me. I've learned that it's really best for me to start slow, get my running gait in line, and then pick up the pace. Everything proceeded as expected - Mr. 34 minutes was way ahead, while I reeled in the other three men over the first lap.
***
I was roughly 300m into the race when I noticed my shorts were falling down. I was wearing an older pair of split shorts with a drawstring, and it seemed like the drawstring had come loose, resulting in the aged fabric of the shorts sagging uncomfortably close to the camel toe zone.
I eased up on the pace and fumbled with the drawstring (nobody was near me on the track) and fixed things. Only to have them sag again about 200m later.
I repeated this process twice more and then realized that the drawstring had broken on the shorts.
Well, this was awkward. Or, at least, potentially awkward.
I debated dropping out and then nixed the idea. I really couldn't justify dropping out because my shorts might end up around my ankles. Dropping out because my shorts had fallen around my ankles, on the other hand, would at least be a great story.
So I tugged at my shorts and managed to roll the waistband a little bit (all while still running) which made the shorts sit slightly higher and more secure. With that temporary fix in place, I decided that I would run until either I had clocked off 25 laps or my shorts fell off my butt.
The laps clicked away, punctuated by Mr. 34 minutes lapping me a couple times, me occasionally lapping the other runners, a n annoying headwind at one corner of the track, and me tugging on my shorts.
I have never done 25 laps at a steady continuous pace on the track, though I regularly do 16 and occasionally do 20 lap tempos (and I've certainly done track workouts with the intervals/recoveries totaling to more than 25 laps). All of which is a lengthy way of saying that I was in new racing territory. When I passed 20 laps and didn't get to stop, I realized that 25 laps is a long way to count down - mentally it's much closer to 13 miles than 6 miles.
That's another way of saying that the last few laps were a real grind. But I managed to hang on and even pick it up a bit for the last lap. I crossed the line officially at 47 minutes and 36.73 seconds and called it a good morning.
***
I woke up on Sunday morning and felt tired, but surprisingly not sore. My coach had (surprisingly) recommended that I take a shot at the 3000 if I felt OK. So I decided to head over to the track for day 2 of the meet, warm up, and then decide whether I was racing the 3000.
My warm-up went OK - I was still (unsurprisingly) tired, but my legs were notably less stiff than the day before. Once again demonstrating that taper for me has to be a careful balance between too much taper (less tired and more stiff) and too little (more tired and less stiff). I had to beat 14:31 to lower my 3000m record, and that seemed eminently doable even on tired legs. So what the heck - it was only 7 and a half laps, right? After yesterday's 25 laps, that seemed like almost a sprint.
I lined up once again, this time in a group of six - four men and two women. The gun went off and once again I dropped behind everyone else into last place while I eased into my gait, before starting to pick up the pace.
There were two key differences between yesterday and today. The first was that my shorts were not an issue. The second was that when I pulled next to the other woman to try to pass her, she picked up her gait to match mine. This was a challenge in other ways beyond the obvious. When I first start running from a standstill, it can be really hard to run very close to someone else. The best way to put it is that I'm really focusing fully on staying on my feet, and having someone next to me is a distraction. And every time I lose a bit of my focus, my gait goes to hell.
However, I'm not very good at changing gears anymore, so dropping behind her to gather some steam and then surging past on a straightaway was not an option, even though we were both running side by side at a pace that wasn't too hard for me. So, I just ran in lane 2 as best I could, reasoning that a) this was good for me and b) at some point she'd get tired and fall behind and then I'd have my space.
The "at some point" happened about 700m into the race. After pulling ahead, I shifted over to lane 1 and felt my stride really smooth out. From there on, it was just a matter of counting down laps and reminding myself that 4 laps to go wasn't very far (although it really was).
When I hit 3 laps to go, I glanced at the clock - it was just changing to 8:30, which meant I had to do 3 laps in 6:00 - about 8 minute pace - to take down my record. Cool. I focused on relaxing my quads and ankles and keeping my body upright and my feet striking under me and endured another lap. 10:20 - so now I had another 10 seconds of room.
At the bell lap, I noted 12:10, and realized I could possibly duck under 14 minutes. Since I had room to experiment, I decided to relax my quads and ankles as much as possible and see where that got me on the last lap. As it turned out, that got me to the finish officially in 13:57.33 - good enough to knock some time off of my previous record. I was happy with that, and also very happy to be done racing for the weekend.
Splits were:
10,000m
Mile 1: 7:50
Mile 2: 7:38
Mile 3: 7:40
Mile 4: 7:35
Mile 5: 7:34
Mile 6: 7:29
last 400 - 1:49 (7:19 pace)
3000m:
Mile 1: 7:36
last 1400: 6:21 (7:18 pace)
[all miles were obviously 1600s, not full miles]
Other notes:
- This time I actually remembered to bring my records forms to the meet to get them completed that day. Of course, what I failed to do was send an email in advance, advising that I was going for a record, which meant that they had to do a "Zero Gun" test on Saturday that they hadn't planned for. Next time I'll have my act totally together.
- One of the nice things about track meets is that you can show up by yourself and leave with several new friends. It reminds me a lot of the DC dark music scene in that way.
- I had an interesting chat with a racewalking coach during the meet. Apparently, my tendency to heelstrike and my leg stiffness would work very well for racewalking. So I guess that's always an option if I decide I need to move on from running (note: I am nowhere near that point right now).
- Someone actually complimented me on my running gait! It's been a while since that happens. More evidence that PT works.
- This was my last track meet for the year, so time to get used to the roads again.
- Next year, I want to try to get that 3000m time down some more. I ran 13:39 earlier this year, but it didn't count because the meet wasn't set up with the right kind of timers/officials, etc.