Had this race on my schedule because it’s part of a winter racing series with the club and because I needed to get some miles in. The plan was to take it pretty easy, but not quite as slow as training pace. I don’t know how hard I actually pushed myself (harder than I had planned), but I’m pretty happy with what I pulled off.
The race has been around for years. The idea is you pay an entry fee or bring some home-baked bread. Since I technically get in to the race free I didn’t have to do anything, but we had a bag of banana bread mix sitting around so I spent some time the night before making it… No idea how it turned out as the baked breads were given out as awards.
The race itself… Started at Glen Echo Park… Really cool place, I need to schedule a trip up there with some of the younger ladies in my life… They’d like it. Down through some residential areas, on to the C&O Canal for a few miles, and finally back up to the park for the finish. My goal was 42ish in this, my first 10k ever, which would be 6:45 pace. At mile five I was looking at 6:40 overall pace. Great! I could cruise this last mile and meet that “goal,” which I had set prerace… Much harder than I had planned to go the night before, but that’s how trying to just get some miles in during a race goes… What I hadn’t thought about is at #5 we were still down in the canal. We had descended quite a bit to get down there… We’d have to ascend. A slow ascent would have been alright, but the entirety of this ascent was covered in probably a tenth of a mile or so. Basically a staircase that was straight up. I contemplated walking… When I reached the top, I was staring 6:47 overall in the face. Absolutely exhausted from the climb, it was going to be tough to pull that lost time back out. I gave it nearly my best effort to finish in 42:05 (6:45 high pace).
I was 11th overall, 2nd in my age group, and would have been 2nd if I were a female. My friend Toni passed me around mile 4 to take the win for the ladies… She said she was taking it easy since she had done a long run the day before, but I think she’s like the rest of us… We’re gonna run hard if we’re out there.
My prize? Choice of bread! I didn’t look long as a foil-wrapped plate seemingly jumped out at me with a label “Brownie Bread.” I live with two girls… “Brownie Bread” would be a nice treat for them. I get home, uncover it, and it’s just a giant pile of brownies. I had been had! Someone is pretty funny, and the ladies are quite pleased with their giant supply of brownies.
Oh, it should be noted that since I was not planning on running hard, I dined on a giant Reuben, fries, Buffalo Wing dip cheese sauce something or other, and both 60-minute (6% ABV) and 90-minute (9% ABV) IPAs at Dogfish Head Alehouse the night before. Awesome, awesome place, but probably the worst meal you could possibly eat the night before a race.
Ohoh, another great thing about this race was it was held at 10:30AM. That is one of the most brilliant logistical decisions I’ve ever seen at a race. It’s the winter… The sun doesn’t come up until like 7. By 8 (typical race start), it hasn’t had any time to heat the air. By 10:30, it has… It was a warmer than average day, but even on a cold one, the difference a few degrees would make would be huge. Bravo to the race directors! Definitely a race I’ll be doing again next year.
Leave a Reply