TC 10 Mile Race Report

Something funny has happened since I moved to Michigan—I've run more races in Minnesota than Michigan.  I love Minnesota, but I guess I need to do something in the Mitten State every so often.

That being said, I journeyed to the Twin Cities for the TC 10 Mile.  A number of firsts happened with this race:

• My first 10 Mile race.
• My first time not running the Twin Cities Marathon since I started running again.
• My first time running a marathon in 10 miles (no, I'm not one of those people who "run a 5k marathon")

After chatting with a person on the plane who was going to run the Twin Cities Marathon for the first time, I arrived in Minnesota and Katie and I grabbed some lunch at our favorite restaurant (the St. Clair Broiler!).  From there, we went to the expo where I may have gone crazy seeing the 20% off sales at the Brooks booth.

The morning of the race, I convinced Katie to wake up much earlier than necessary (she ran the 10 Mile too!), then get to the shuttle to get to the Dome much earlier than necessary.  She was displeased with me until just before the race started (sorry Katie).  We split up to our assigned corrals, I warmed up a bit, and then after a short wait, I was off.

I really had 2 strategies for this race.

1. Don't Be Stupid.  I haven't been training as much as I should have.  I wasn't going to try for a course record.  Anywhere between 80 and 90 minutes would make me happy.
2. Race the Marathon.  I had a very successful marathon last year.  There were a few guiding principles of my race strategy that I wanted to adhere to for this race.  These included: no weaving through heavy traffic (just go with the flow the first few miles), easy on the hills until I reach Summit, and go for broke on Summit Avenue.

So, it was going to be the marathon, but I skipped the first 16.2 miles (makes it easy, eh?).  The race started off well, but the course was narrow.  I knew that running tangents would be next to impossible, so I started myself on the right side of the course knowing that the majority of the curves in the first 3 miles were to the right.  I stayed right until I hit the Franklin Bridge.  The uphill to the bridge was slow, but I did that deliberately.

East River Parkway allowed me to pick a steady pace for miles 4 and 5.  The hidden uphill upon entering St. Paul was taken slow, as were the next 2 uphill stretches from Marshall to St. Thomas.

On Summit, I picked it up considerably.  My splits in the first 6 (uphill) miles averaged about 8'40"/mile.  The last 4 miles averaged around 7'40"/mile.  I pushed hard, and crossed the finish line with a negative split of about 4 minutes.

Stats

Time: 1:23:04

Overall Place: 1686 / 7549

Male Place: 1109 / 2917

M22-29 Place: 234 / 502

Some observations...

First, I LOVE the 10 Mile distance!  Not only is it the perfect distance where one needs endurance but still must go fast, it makes calculating splits on the fly super easy.  What's my pace?  Just divide by 10!

Second, the atmosphere around the TC 10 Mile is great, but very different than the Marathon.  Not in a bad way, it was just, different.  (But, why were the t-shirts the most obnoxious green in the world?  The airport workers thought I was one of them on my flight home!)

Third, I need to run more.  I've got a number of great running trails around me now (which I'll detail in a blog post), so this should become easier.

Fourth, I love MTEC Results.  Remember the cool "you passed/passed by" stats from the marathon last year?  Here's something similar (but with fewer data points):

Miles 1-5: I was passed by 479 people, and passed 195 people.
Miles 6-10: I was passed by 20 people, but passed 437.

So, a very strong second half.

Katie and I after the race.  She raced a 6-minute 10 Mile PR!

One cool thing was being around for the finish of the marathon.  The last 2 years I was hours behind the winner, so it was really cool to see them come around the corner and head to the finish.  Katie and I hung out around the farm animals 1/2 mile before the end and got to witness this:

Winner of the men's marathon

How cool is that?  We also saw the elite women finish (no photos though), and there was quite a battle for 3rd place.  After this, Katie and I went back to her place, but made a quick detour to Mile 22.5 to cheer for a friend, Tony.  He got a major PR too!

Minnesota, it was a grand weekend.  Let's do it again sometime, ok?