Two weeks ago I ran Grandma’s Marathon. I had a great time and unlike previous races, my legs weren’t completely dead after the race. I took the rest of the week off and looked for other opportunities for running. An obvious choice was the Twin Cities in Motion Red, White, and Boom Half Marathon on July 4th in Minneapolis. It sounded like a great idea, but I, however, didn’t quite feel up for paying $55 to run another half marathon. Instead, my wife found a nice little 10k around Lake Harriet on July 2nd, The Independence Day Races.
This is a small event, and I’m not even really sure who organizes it. There were about 300 people total between the 5k and 10k race. I still wasn’t feeling 100% like racing, so I figured this would be a great time to check off one of my 2011 Running Goals and do a race in my Vibrams. Looking around at the starting line, I’m pretty sure I was the only person who made this choice. Apparently Minneapolis isn’t as hip with the minimalist running thing as New York is.
A lap around Lake Harriet is about 3.05 miles, so 5k is a little more than a loop. Because of this 10k runners started first, then the 5k runners assembled at their starting line and took off about 3-4 minutes after the 10k. This meant that at some point during my first lap around the lake I was going to be passed by the lead 5k runners, I can handle that. It was all a question of when.
Being a smaller race this race started off FAST. Unlike previous races around Lake Harriet there was no jostling for position or jumping onto the sidewalk. The 10k runners quickly spread out and by the time that I finally had my phone and keys situated in my SpiBelt about five minutes into the race I was running the clear and no longer needed to worry about dodging runners. Combined with excellent weather, about 72°F but with fairly high humidity, this allowed me to concentrate on my footfalls and running the race I wanted to run. I settled in with a group of three runners doing somewhere around a 7:20 pace.
Around mile 2 one of the runners from the back of the pack came up to me. I took the opportunity to ask if we were going slower or he was going faster. Luckily, he had sped up and I wasn’t loosing much ground. By the time I was about 2.8 miles into the race I started to wonder where the lead 5k runners were. Finally, about 3 miles in the lead 5k runner passed me. He looked to be doing about 6:00/mi.
As I crossed the finish line on the first lap I was a little astonished. About 22:40 for about 3.15 miles. That’s fast. Faster than I’ve done a 5k before. Faster than I wanted to run. Faster than I had ever run in shoes and I was running my Vibrams. Youch.
The second lap was very spread out. Starting about mile 2 there was a little weaving in and out of some large packs of slow 5k walkers, but no big deal. I throttled back my pace some because I didn’t want to kill myself during the run. This caused some of the runners I was around to pass me, but I wasn’t too concerned. I just wanted to run a good race. I wasn’t shooting for a PR.
Well, sometimes stuff just happens. In this case I crossed the finish line at 45:04. Good enough for 14th place out of 133 runners and 3/10 in my age group. No complaints about that. I grabbed my water, scored a freeze pop, and wandered over to watch my wife set a 10k PR for her too.
Pace vs Elevation for the 2011 Independence Day 10k At Lake Harriet
Looking at the chart of Pace vs Elevation from RunKeeper you can see that I ended up slowing down as I got further in the race. Normally this isn’t something that I should try to do, but in this case I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I wanted to run a nice fun race and when I realized I was running at a pace that I wasn’t trained for, I decided to throttle it back some. This is also evident in my mile splits.
2011 Independence Day 10k Mile Splits
As usual, ignore my last mile split because I’m often not very good at turning off RunKeeper right away. Such was the case here where I spent some time talking to the girl that I finished with (she was 3rd place female). I’m a little concerned that I might have slowed down too much for mile 6, but now I have something to shoot for. I know I should be able to easily break 45:00 for a 10k. Maybe a stretch goal is in order? How about 43:00 for 10k? That sounds like a challenge I can work toward.
Keep Running.
Twenty Six and Two 