Top 10 Ten Mile Race-Late.....

Here's another late race report. It's a shorter one. I did the Top 10 ten mile run on August 7th. I did this as a run to see where my fitness was going into the ADT half marathon a month later. I wanted to break 1:20 at the half and this would help me see where I was in accomplishing that goal. I felt anything under an hour would have me right where I needed to be. The race started on a track. After the gun went off, we started around the track but there were no volunteers to turn us onto the road so the lead group of 10 runners went the wrong way. Only a couple of seconds lost but confusion in the first 1/4 mile is not good. My fellow Team Aquaphor athlete, Nathan McCrary went out hard and as a result, so did I. I definitely did not feel good only 1/2 mile into the race. I continued on and eventually caught Nathan who was still looking strong around the 2.5 mile mark. We ran near each other and then a gap slowwwwwly started started to develop. That guy is so strong and I felt the rest of the race like he was right behind me. I checked my watch for the first time at the five mile mark and it showed 29:09. While I was well under pace to break an hour, I felt terrible and was unsure if I could even hold pace to break that hour mark. I ran miles 6,7,8 and 9 in 5:57, 6:08, 6:10 and 6:02. The final mile had me side by side with another racer who had caught up with me so I dug deep to hold my position. We ran together until we hit the finish on the Colorado College track. 2 loops and then the finish. I started to sprint with 300 and gapped him by 7 seconds. To be honest, this was the best sprint I had ever had so gapping a great runner like him was unexpected but welcome. I ended up running the final mile in 5:39 for a final time of 59:06. My teammate Nathan finished lest than a minute behind me for a good Team Aquaphor showing!

This was an all time PR of 5:43 so I was really pleased with the result. I ended up 8th overall and 1st place master. I felt this had me on the right track for my sub 1:20 next month with proper training.