Bluegrass 10,000 Race Report

The Bluegrass 10K has been my favorite race ever since I started running 4 years ago.  I guess it's easy to call a race your 'favorite' when you achieve a personal best time at it year after year.  This was my fourth year racing the BG 10K, and every year prior, I achieved a new PR (Personal Record) on this course.  I'd come to expect a PR performance out of myself during this race, but knew the day would come when that PR would elude me.  On July 4, 2012 (a day that set a record for the highest heat on a July 4th in Lexington KY), that day came. 

A few running buddies who live in my neighborhood met me at my house at 6:45 AM on race morning so we could all peddle downtown together as our warm up for the race.  This was the second year I’ve rode my bike downtown for the BG 10K, and I will never do it any other way now.  It is a great 4 mile warm up, and you don’t have to hassle with or fret about finding a parking spot.  The plan was to leave promptly at 6:45, but that didn’t happen because we spent a few minutes watching Tyler chase our neighbors’ (who were out of town) bunnies that had gotten loose around our yard.  I believe this was Tyler’s way of warming up before the race, as he had to drive downtown because he had to go to work right after the race.  We could have watched him try to catch bunnies all morning, it was such a hilarious sight, but we had to start making our way downtown.  It was a little before 7:15 when we arrived downtown.  We locked our bikes up at the rack right outside of McCarthy’s Irish Pub (where we planned to celebrate with beers after the race).  We walked to the start line, and within a minute of positioning ourselves in the mass start, the gun was shot and we were off! 

It is always hot during the BG 10K, but this year was exceptionally hot, as Lexington KY (along with most of the country) was in the middle of an extreme heat wave.  I had already broke a sweat during the easy ride downtown, and knew it was going to be the sweatiest race I’d ever done.  I prepared by making an ice ball, which I carried in the palm of my hand while walking to the start line, and for the first 2 miles of the race until it melted completely.  As always, the first mile of the race felt great.  I positioned myself within the first 15 lines of people in the mass start so I wouldn’t have to weave in and out of too many people, but that caused me to get caught up in the speed of everyone around me and go out a little too fast the first mile (7:18), woops! 

By the end of mile 2 (my pace for mile 2 was a 7:50), I was ready for the race to be over.  The heat was getting to me, and that great first mile feeling was long gone.  A little after the 2 mile mark, I heard a young boy say to his parents “Look, it’s American Girl !”  I knew he was talking about me because I was wearing my homemade red, white, and blue patriotic sports bra.  That made me laugh and took my mind off the heat and pain for a few seconds at least. 

I knew I would see a group of my friends (John’s Striders) around mile 2.7 of the race and they would have a cool bottle of water, and a frozen water balloon for me.  The purpose of the ice ball at the beginning of the race and frozen balloon during the race was to help cool my core body temperature.  I ended up having to stop for a couple seconds when I got to them in order to grab a frozen balloon, but I really didn’t care.  I could already feel that I wasn’t going to run a Personal Record time at this race for the first time in four years, so I knew a couple seconds probably wouldn’t matter.   I reached the 5K mark around 23:40.  I knew at that point, unless I did a negative split (not likely in that heat) there was no way I was going to beat my PR of 47:09.  My mile 3 was a 8:10...I was slipping. 

In past years, even while PR’ing, and running much faster than I did this year, I was able to talk during the race- saying 'thank you' to the volunteers spraying me with water, and giving a “Woot Woot” to spectators or other racers who yelled my name during the race, at the least.  This year, I was so hot and miserable that I didn’t make a single ‘peep’ during the entire race.  I gave a wave and smile to those who yelled my name, but that was all I could offer.  Since the last 4 miles of the course is an out-and-back, I saw my friends in the John’s Striders cheering/ support section again around mile 4.7.  It was nice to see them all and hear my name, but I was just so ready to be done running.  My mile 4 split was a 7:50.

The last couple miles of this course are mostly flat or a gradual downhill (my strengths), so physically and mentally I am able to ‘pick it up’ at the end of this race every year. Although I thought I'd be ready to pick up the pace at mile 5, my body wasn't ready to do that yet, and I slowed back down to an 8:10 that mile.  I had been keeping an eye on a few girls who were in front of me the entire race.  At times, they’d be just a few steps ahead of me, and at other times they’d be as much as twenty five yards ahead of me.   At the beginning of mile 6, I decided I was going to pass these girls, and they were not going to pass me back.  I picked up my pace, and ran a  7:27 for mile 6.  You can see the finish line of this race from a good ½ mile or maybe even further away.  This makes the last ½ mile or so extremely painful!  Around mile 6, I noticed a man in front of me wearing a long pants and long sleeved American flag costume, and realized how hot he must be.  I just couldn’t let this man who must have been absolutely roasting beat me! I gave it everything I had to catch and pass him- which meant running my last .22 of a mile at 6:49 pace!

As soon as I stepped across the finish line and started walking, my body nearly lost all control.  I couldn’t walk straight whatsoever, and I felt like I was going to pee myself.  Luckily I was able to hold in the pee (I really don’t know how), but there was nothing I could do about my issue with walking.  I walked into a man who finished right behind me and was trying to get past me, then continued to stumble my way through the finish chute.  A fellow racer noticed my inability to walk straight, and asked me if I was okay.  I told him “Yes, this happens after a lot of races” but the truth was, I had never been this bad off at the end of a race before.  The man was persistent, asking me several times if I was okay, to which my response was the same every time.  He grabbed a couple police officers standing nearby and asked them to help me.  They led me to a curb, told me to sit down, and got me some Gatorade.  The stubborn part of me wanted to argue with them and insist I would be fine, but the rest of me was A) too tired to fight, and B) actually had a semblance of a brain left and thought it would be really unfortunate if I ended up falling and cracking my skull on the concrete.  I sat on the curb for I don’t know how many minutes until I couldn’t take it anymore.  More and more of my friends were crossing the finish line and talking to one another about the race, and I hated to miss those conversations.  I got up and didn’t have to walk far to find my friends, and leaned on them for support while we all shared our stories.  After several minutes I realized that the bottoms of my feet were incredibly sore.  I assumed I had stone bruises from the fact that my racing shoes have no cushion.  I sat down on a curb to change my shoes (I’d brought a pair of Tevas with me) and saw the pads of my feet were black.  I still assumed they were stone bruises, until about 36 hours post-race when I realized they were blood blisters- gross!

I’m able to chalk most of my poor race performance up to the heat and humidity of the morning (it was at least 75 degrees and 80% humidity).  I can’t help but think about a couple other factors, however, which may have played a role in my first Non- PR Bluegrass 10K race:

1)   The adage “You can’t win a race in the first mile, but you sure can lose it” may have pertained to my 2012 BG 10K.  In order to run the time I was aiming for (46:30) I would have needed to maintain an average of 7:29 pace for the 6.2 mile race.  Why in the hell, then, did I allow myself to go out in a 7:18 pace?!  Granted, I was able to run my last 1.22 miles at 7:18 pace, but maybe those miles in between could have been faster. 

  

2)    Maybe, just maybe, I need to step up my running mileage.. As much as I’ve enjoyed ‘following’ (I use that term loosely because I didn’t follow the plan to a “T”, skipping runs here and there) a 10K training plan for the past several months, I have most definitely lost my running base.  Last year, I ran the BG 10K a minute and nine seconds faster than this year; last year I trained for a marathon over the winter.  I felt stronger as a runner last year than I do this year. 

Perhaps my poor performance in this race (be it due to the heat, or to one or both of the aforementioned factors) was just the reality check I needed to get me to step up my running training.  I’m racing again next weekend (Olympic Triathlon near Columbus OH) but after that, I plan to add another day of running to my schedule.  Hopefully I can find the time to squeeze it in between biking and swimming, as I can’t afford to compromise my time on the bike.  Why did I just say ‘hopefully’?  Where there’s a will there’s a way, I make time for the things I want to accomplish if I truly want them bad enough, so lets see exactly how bad I want to become a faster runner. 

                                                        Post-race celebrating and Downtown Festivities