Running a Road 10 K

I came off the 2023-2024 truncated ski season hot. More precisely, I tapped into my altitude training and a shortened course to push really hard and had one of my best Birkies ever. My mind was super focused and my body responded almost effortlessly. Hoping to take advantage of some of that fitness (and feeling), I immediately got to running intervals and set my sights on a spring half marathon.

The intervals went swimmingly with paces in the mid to even low 7 minutes per mile range. This was faster than I’d run in years; although the longest interval was only a mile. But my right tibial tendonitis wasn’t quite healed so I dropped the distance down to 10 km. I looked at a couple races but in the end Erik was most interested in the Endurance United Go Spring 10 km trail run at Battle Creek. So I got to running lots of hill intervals and thought I was ready as my paces were mostly in the upper 7 minute range for 6-10 minute intervals, including a 3 x 10 minute workout. But these were all on the road and some of the intervals were in the lower 8 minute per mile range.

The May weather was perfect for racing but I grossly underestimated the mega hills on course and went out way too fast. Those big hills at Battle Creek are simply brutal. I walked many of them. Then finally, with about half mile to go I knew I could do better. Three women had just passed me and I used some of my fitness to chase them down and beat two in a sprint to the finish. 

 

10 km race in 58 minutes, averaging 9:12 pace. But look at that total ascent of 629 feet!!! Erik got around 800 feet and his Garmin is more accurate since it has a barometer. Despite the slow pace my effort was hard the whole race and my average heart rate was 157.

Even though my time was quite slow, I worked hard in that race. I figured I could go 10 minutes faster on the road……

Last year I’d seen the Victory 10 km advertised on my Run Minnesota emails and had thought about registering but it conflicted with a family wedding. When I saw the emails this year, I decided we had to register.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of needing to PR every time I race. I’ve admittedly only ran one 10 km course in my life, albeit several years in a row, and the last time being 19 years ago. I’ve scoured the internet and only one of my times are posted and that was from 2004, a year I was so burned out I struggled to run for 10 minutes without walking. From a letter I had sent to my aunt in 2001, I ran 49 some minutes that year and from a journal entry from 2003, at age 18, I ran 47 some minutes. At the time I remember considering that one of my best ever running races. While I should really wipe the slate clean from PRs, the reality is I’m actually stronger now than I was back then in high school.

Despite the impending race, my training was thrown off by a couple backpacking vacations, the latter of which didn’t go according to plan and I didn’t do as much training as I would’ve liked. Hence, over the 8 weeks prior to the race I had only done the following interval workouts:

4 x 6 minutes L3 with 2 minutes rest; paces: 7:52, 7:38, 7:32, 7:24

Track 800s and 600s. 800 paces about 6:40

Track 400s averaging 6:10 pace

5 x 1 mile with 3 minutes rest. Times: 8:08, 7:59, 7:53, 7:40, 7:25

5 x 6 minutes L3 with 2 minutes rest; paces 7:47, 8:10 (big uphill), 7:28, 7:33, 7:20

3 x 1 mile with 5 minutes rest between. Times 7:24, 7:11, and 6:58

I figured the 5 x 1 mile workout provided me a realistic pace expectation for the race. Upper 7:50s were probably a bit too slow but I’d really felt the 7:40, although that was mostly uphill, and the 7:25 felt absolutely unsustainable. The 5 x 6 minute workout made me feel better but I was a bit thrown off by the 3 x 1 mile with the paces being faster than I’d run my senior year of high school. My first mile was a 7:24, a second faster than the 7:25 I’d run at the end of the 5 mile workout and it was way easier. But it was the first mile, not the last. So perhaps I was capable of running faster than I thought? I really wanted to run sub-48 minutes, although this was more of my B goal cause my A goal was to go even faster.

Race morning was in the upper 50, essentially perfect weather and just warm enough to not need warm-ups. I felt a bit nervous and not so good in my 2 x 1 minute pull-outs in warm up. The route was an out-and-back and quite flat along Webber and Memorial Parkways in north Minneapolis. When the gun went off I tried to not go out too hard. It’s always interesting to me to see people who don’t look fast running really fast and others who look fast not being so fast.

I’d set my watch to autolap every half mile to get quicker feedback than going an entire mile, something I did for Twin Cities Marathon and really liked it so have been doing it since. Usually that first half mile goes by really quick, but today it was dragging on forever. When is my watch going to autolap? I kept wondering. Finally it did and the split was 3:41 or 7:22 mile pace. Way too fast. I’d been running with Erik but I immediately backed off the pace and let Erik go.

The second half mile went by just as slowly but then over the next mile we turned south, there was a band playing, a handful of spectators, and just before the two mile mark, some family cheering me on. Soon there were some uber fast runners on their return and then I noted we were running uphill. The third mile dragged on. Erik was slowly getting farther and farther ahead of me. I wasn’t exactly suffering but it certainly didn’t feel effortless.

Finally I got to the turn-around and realized we had been going uphill more deceptively than I’d realized and now we got to go downhill. I’d remembered there was a small uphill just before the 4 mile mark but interestingly enough that small, slightly steeper hill was actually easier than the longer grinder. Now I only had two miles left but I definitely wasn’t feeling it to make my body suffer. As we neared the one mile to go I tried to pick up the pace a bit. I was breathing harder now but my mind wasn’t strong enough to push my body harder. I also remembered how long that first mile had felt.

Then I was down to half mile but this went on forever again. I kept waiting for the last turn and it seemed like it would never come but of course, it did, eventually. Then I was down to 0.2 miles to go. I tried to will my mind to push my body harder but I wasn’t on mentally and even in the last 0.1 miles really couldn’t fully push.

I crossed the finish line and stopped and then all the bad body feelings came. My chip time was just short of my goal, 48:02. Based on that time, I’d averaged 7:44 pace. Not bad. Elspeth, remember how you feel right now, I told myself. I was breathing hard. My body felt like it was going to give out, and it was an effort just to breathe and slowly walk towards the water/feed station. 

The relatively flat out-and-back Victory 10 K course with my Garmin time and average pace.

My heart rate (gray shadow) steadily rose throughout the race but never spiked at the end. My pace was overall fairly consistent (top line) and my auto laps started hot, got slower (last one all uphill), then steady, then finally increased a tad by the end.

 

My actual autolaps and paces. Also shows that the first half was uphill and the second half downhill. This heart rate is a solid level 3 for me but I should've been able to make it spike a bit higher at the end.

This certainly wasn’t like my effortless Birkie, or that race around Lake Bemidji which might have just been my best ever. I could tell from the beginning that my body wasn’t spot on and neither was my mind. The best days are when both are in sync. Despite racing for over 20 years, I still haven’t been able to figure out how to get both to fire together for every race.

I remember one time racing the Elm Creek Wednesday night race of 5 km skate followed (after a short break) by a 5 km classic. Usually I’m a bit sluggish in the classic after putting out the effort for the skate, but in that classic race when I hit The Wall and told my body to break into a herring-bone run, my legs just took off and I bolted up that hill easily, surprising even myself. That rare energy I can tap into is my gold standard for a good race.

I’d like to say I’ll be back at this race next year to try to break 48 minutes but I never had a good time from the start. Perhaps I’ll try a different 10 K. And perhaps I’ll find that magic combo when the mind is ready to push and the body responds to the command.