Ten Junk Miles

The 10-miler has been a favorite race of mine for several years.  

• 1.) it’s a distance that suits me;
• 2.) it has a symmetry to it that I appreciate–out and back, even numbers, mile pace always equal to finishing time (i.e., if you run a 7.5 minute mile pace, you finish in 75 minutes);
• 3.) it has enough flat and enough hill to make it an honest but fun race; and
• 4.) the train is always a crapshoot, which I find humorous.

Today, I wasn’t expecting to race, because I was targeting a 10K in Irvine on May 3rd. Consequently, really racing this one was off the table if I wanted to perform all-out in two weeks. But the cold that snuck up on me before Carlsbad and hung on, an annoying petty tyrant, wouldn’t let go.  

I’ve been under the weather (What does that mean?  Beneath a cloud cover?  Suffocating in some netherland purgatory, below the real world with real weather, where normal people breath freely?) for too many days to count, and reluctantly made the decision to bail on the Irvine race.  I know many of you have had to make similar choices, and it’s hard.  You train for months, you have the hotel all lined up, you have visions of PR’s dancing in your head, you even dream about racing, for Pete’s sake…but to travel all that way for a sub-par performance just seems futile.  

Jenny the Marathoner

 

BUT…to travel all that way to boost a friend in a marathon?  Now that sounds feasible.  Jenny Mintz is running the OC Marathon, which falls on the same day as the Irvine 10K, so Kim and I might just tootle down and use that hotel room after all, to cheer for our teammate.

Back to the 10-miler.  The original plan was to run it as a tempo, warming up the first half with 8-8:30 minute miles, and bringing it down to 7’s by the end.  I figured that would bring me in somewhere between 1:16 and 1:17.  But I jettisoned that scheme.  Since I’m not going to race Irvine, I might as well give it what I’ve got, right? 

Goodbye, my friends

We line up, and I spend a few minutes admiring the abs of three studettes:  Sara Mandes, Laura Turner and Desa Mandarino.  I start out with Kim B. (aka Kmonkee) and Gary Maxwell.  We decide to shoot for 7:20’s.  We hit the 1st mile in 7:15, and they keep up the pace while I purposely slow a bit. Michelle Greer comes by for a little chat.  She’d planned to pace off me for 7:20’s, but I tell her not to count on it, and she moves ahead.  I don’t know why, the the 2nd mile in this race is always maddeningly slower than perceived effort, and I hit it in 7:29.  OK, still within range. 

During the next two miles everything catches up with me:  Carlsbad, Tough Enough, my lingering cold.  I learned a new word last week:  ”rales.”  I was out running with two doctors who told me that’s the name for the crackling noise in your lungs that sounds like Rice Krispies when you breathe.  (Lest you think I’m a glutton for punishment, they also told me it was OK to run through a chest cold, as long as I didn’t push too hard.)  Mile three,  7:36.  I clock mile 4, cemetery hill, at 7:39.  Mile 5 (no train!), which is a slight but steady uphill, 7:48, and 6, back down, in a mediocre 7:37.

Glug, chug, tug

 

This race is not going according to either Plan A or Plan B.  It is merely some vaguely fast “in between” running, faster than my easy pace but not really a tempo.  I think I read somewhere that it is exactly this kind of running that doesn’t really hit any systems for improvement.  What am I doing?  Mile seven I slow down to a walk up the Ty Warner hill.  A WALK, in the middle of a race!  A first for me.  The lovely and gracious Elda Rudd stops and walks a few beats with me, just to ascertain I am not going to pass out (she saw me weave a little before stopping).  No, I’m not hitting the floor, I’m just…well, I don’t know what I’m doing.  I’m certainly not racing.  I’m just out bumbling around on a beautiful day with a race number pinned to my shirt.  Amr El Abbadi, whose two wonderful children have been my students, passes me, shouting encouragement.  I pick it up…no miles over 8:00 for me!  I punch in mile 7 at 7:56, just under the wire.  

I feel a little better during the long cool segment by the wall across from the bird refuge, and I see abundant grey locks ahead, a strikingly beautiful woman in yellow whom I think is in my age group.  This gives me some focus, and I pick it up a little.  Mile 8, 7:40.  I catch and pass her on the long hard stretch of concrete in mile 9, and we exchange encouragement and names.  

Beautiful Marla

She is Marla, and now I know she IS in my age group.  She beat me at Pier to Peak a few years back, and she is one tuff runner.  I am galvanized, and hit the 9-mile mark in 7:27.  The last mile I’m hanging on, and Gary Miliken, who always seems to pass me in the last mile of every race, cheerfully obliges again this time.  Kent Harris jumps in just after the breakwater kiosk, urging me on.  I don’t have it, Kent, sorry.  ”But you can’t let that person behind you catch you!”  he teases.  OK, OK, I do have it, and I give it the old arm-swinging, air-sucking last-200-meter fight.  

I finish in 1:15:51, nine seconds under my projected time, and 5+ minutes over what I usually run for this race.  I think I’d have been better off with Plan A (lesson:  stick to the plan!), but I won a very cool Nike bag, a pair of great trail socks, some Tri-Berry Gu, and a pretty turqoise hat.  

Irvine is definitely out, but I might try to regroup in time for the Mother’s Day 10K.  See y’all out there!