Cbus 10 Miler Back Story

I ran the Cbus 10 miler yesterday as a tune up race for the Cap City Half Marathon next month. I wasn't really looking for a tune up race but a friend suggested it and in case you didn't know, it's very hard for a runner to say no, once someone suggests a race. So I ran the race and I'm glad I did.

A little background before I go into the race details. After coming back from a pretty nasty plantar fasciitis injury, I began training for the Las Vegas Marathon. I had a pretty decent training cycle and flew to Vegas confident that I would run a strong, respectable race. I was thinking 3:25 ballpark. Long story short, I was pretty sick the day before the race plus I still had the tail end of a nagging cold that I could still feel in my chest every time I ran. I ignored all of this and tried to convince myself that I would be fine on race day.

Race day started out great. I went out at a smart pace, felt pretty good and then totally fell apart after only 6 or 7 miles. It was very frustrating and disappointing but I realized that it was happening because I was sick and so I wisely made the decision to cut the race short and slogged my way to a very slow (for me) half marathon time.

My goal at the time had been to re-qualify for Boston and then focus on shorter distances for a while. I had been training for and running marathons non-stop for over 4 years and my body was tired and beat up. It was time to take a break and take care of myself.

About a week after the Las Vegas debacle, I saw an article about a New Years Day 5k where if you beat the race director, you got a free entry for the Columbus Marathon. I had never raced anything shorter than a half marathon and I had made a conscious decision to tackle some shorter distances, so I said, why not, and I registered for the 5k.

So I ran the 5k in 21:25 and did not beat the race director. I found this distance intriguing in a short-term, high density pain kind of way and thought, hmmm, if I could run a 21:25 without any 5k specific training, I wonder what I could do if I actually trained for the distance.

I picked a goal race and found a suitable training program and got to work. At first, I thought it was too easy. I was used to high mileage. But at the same time, I really loved doing the speedwork, and almost every workout was had some sort of speed specific goal attached. So I was no longer doing long distance runs but instead, short, fast runs. I really enjoyed it and before I knew it the day of my goal race was upon me. Along the way, I noticed that almost all of the nagging injuries and aches and pains that I had been living with for years had all but disappeared during the 8 weeks of reduced mileage. I felt faster, stronger, and healthier than I had felt in a long time. I felt ready to race.

That was until the night before the race. I started freaking out the night before the race because I still didn't feel like I had a solid grasp on exactly how to run this short distance and I felt like the margin for error was very small. I consulted my friends on Facebook and in a matter of minutes I had some very solid and useful advice from about 6 or 7 different friends. I now had the confidence I needed.

I went out on race day and followed the plan that I had formulated based on the advice I had received the night before. I felt much faster and stronger than I had on my New Years Day race and I ended up shaving a full minute off of that time. I was pretty happy with the result. I still had a pie in the sky goal of a sub 20:00 5k, but I also felt like I had done enough for now at that distance and decided to register for the Cap City Half Marathon. Which leads me to the 10 mile tune up race.