St. Patty's day 10k RR

Hey all,

I haven't run a race in awhile, much less written a RR.  But I figured I better do this right away, or it wouldn't get done at all.  So here goes, hopefully I get through it.  Sometimes for me the RR can be tougher than the race itself!

The morning started off pretty good.  We went to bed early and I slept amazingly well!  I'm always nervous for races even 10ks, but today I felt really good getting up, despite the weather.  Weather network showed something like -19 with windchill I think and some flakes coming down.  Anyways I got up and ate a small breakfast(oatmeal), drank some coffee and got my running clothes on.  We were almost out of coffee but I managed to make some really weak coffee and get it down before I had to go.

Pretty quick drive except that as I passed McDonalds I got a craving for more coffee and the drive through was empty so I got another small coffee with a shot of expresso, high octane yah!!  I only ended up drinking half of it.  I parked underground at Oclaire market, this is by far the nicest thing about this race on a cold day.  You don't have to go outside till it's time to run, and on a cold day like today it rocks.  So I got there a bit early and I sat around, went to the bathroom, and sat some more.

About 20 min till race time and I went outside for a short warmup.  2km should be good and I was going to do some pickups after, but with the snow/slick conditions I only did one.  My start would be slower today as I did not want to injure myself so after my warmup and a 1x pickup I went indoors for a quick warmup before the race start.

At the start we had to wait a bit, I got cold but not too too bad.  It was snowing more now so the section on concrete/brick was really slipperly.  So much for a good time, but my main goal for this is just a really solid effort.  I never understand why some people put themselves right in the front when they are slower, so when the gun went off I nearly tripped on someone as I had to pass them 10ft into the race.  They were going significantly slower.  Anyways 2 guys bolted ahead, I quickly knew they were going to be too fast for me.  I headed up the chase group behind.  With one guy between so I think I was 4th starting out?  My assessment, the two up ahead would remain there, unless they really blow up.  The one in the middle just ahead didn't look like much of a runner so I thought he would fade and I'd catch him at some point.  Runners behind me, well I obviously didn't look so no chance to assess.  For now I led a pack, but slowly pulled ahead, or at least I thought I was pulling away.

I glanced down at my pace ever so often and for now it averaged around 3:50 which I was satisfied with, thought maybe I went out a touch too hard?  But I had to keep in contact with the guy just ahead.  At about 1.5 km someone bolted ahead past me and really started making ground on 3rd, so that put me in 5th I think.  He passed the 3rd place guy around 3km and I was only about 10 - 20 ft behind him, and still gaining.  By about 4km I could still see the two in the lead and one of them looked to be fading really badly, looked like he went out wayyy too hard.  Ahhh the scent of blood,  so as soon as I was past the 4th place guy it was time to focus on the fader.  I caught him just after the turn around, it was a out an back(they had changed the course).  Here's where I started hurting bad and slowed a touch.  I kinda used that opportunity to draft behind the 3rd place guy.  I have plenty of time to pass and the 2nd place guy was too far ahead to catch, so I wanted to make sure I didn't blowup.  We were also going into the wind now so I ran behind him, but soon started feeling guilty as I was clearly using him to energize myself before the pass.  So I passed him and tried picking it up, but I didn't speed up much, still suffering.  He must have been suffering too though as I noticed him drift back.  So with 3km left I was stuck in 3rd, too far back to catch 2nd but I thought my spot was safe too.  So I just tried to maintain the pace and keep an eye on the guy ahead.  At times I thought I was gaining, but then I'd weaken and loose ground again.  My slowest kms were def. 6-8, maybe 9 I haven't looked at strava yet.

For the last km I managed to pick it up a bit as I had dropped down to 4:10ish pace for 6-8 so managed to run around 4min for the last km, to finish it up with a time of 39:18.  I had hoped to run under 38, but with the slick snow for about 4-5km of it I'm happy.  It was a good hard effort and I went as hard as I could so there's not much I can do about the conditions.  I'm happy it's done, now on to the police half in April.  Cheers,

DP