Army 10 Miler

The past week was filled with indecision over whether I should race this morning or not.  On Wednesday I saw a massage guy (Mario Washington @ Select Physical Therapy) who had me in more distress than I have ever been in during a massage session.  My right & left calves were extremely tight, and he busted up a lot of scar tissue.  My mechanics haven't felt smooth in some time, but the massage made each passing day feel a little bit more normal.  I decided to give the race a go, despite the fact that the only other guy on the team who would be under 55 is out with a stress fracture. 

I woke up at 5:30 and did a standard 10 minute shakeout run without any discomfort.  The weather was really nice at the start, and the Army did a great job of organizing and managing everything.  At the starting line I had probably 100 people in front of me, which initially seemed like it wouldn't be a problem because I expected them to all go out quickly for the first 1/4 - 1/2 mile and then fade away.  The Howitzer fired, and the people in front of me began at a rather pedestrian race; this is the last time I make the assumption that those who are 4 feet back from the starting line a) belong there, b) will go out fast enough to not be a large inconvenience to me.  I spent the first quarter mile ducking & weaving around people who were a little too ambitious with their placement.  I didn't feel relaxed, and I didn't feel smooth.

In a recent spate of races being mis-marked with regards to mile markers, I decided to wear the Garmin.  It turned out that the split I was given for each mile by Garmin was roughly 6 seconds short of what it should have been.  I rolled through 3 mi in roughly 16:05, 5 in 26:45, and then began to slow a bit.  I managed to stay right at 5:30 pace for the remainder of the race.  At 9 I passed 2004 US Olympian Dan Browne, who appeared to be limping slightly.  I gave him a word of encouragement, and headed on.  I caught an Ethiopian who regularly cleans up DC races who must have been having an off day.  We went back & forth over the last half mile and he sprinted away from me in the last 100 meters; a Kenyan also blew by me with 50 meters to go as well.  Results haven't been posted, but I was most likely ~54:15 with no idea of what place I ended up in.  My old PR was 54:27, so it's good to have bested that while not being 100%. 

The upshot is I ran a PR coming in with relatively low confidence (I didn't know I would race until yesterday morning).  I think I hung on well and mentally stayed in it even though I didn't feel awesome doing it.  The calves didn't hurt during the race, which is an improvement over last week. 

The downside is I didn't really feel smooth at all during the race.  Fitnesswise, I think I have more in me than what I came up with today, but that's how things go.  I recognize that frequent massage is going to have to be a big part of the next 5 weeks to be able to run the marathon as I would like. 

Overall, this was a positive effort, not perfect, but considering I was limping out of bed 5 days ago, I'll take it.