It wasn’t without some trepedation that I got ready to run this morning; I haven’t exactly been looking forward to this time trial. Maybe its just because I don’t really feel prepared. This is crazy talk to some extent - I’m running faster, smoother, and more consistently than I ever have before. Still, I don’t seem to have the confidence that I can get the job done. Maybe that’s part of what this trial is for, come to think of it.

I had one wonderful surprise this morning as I stepped out of the house to get to my car - it was cool. Heck, it was cold! Well, by Texas standards, at least; the temperature was a balmy 63 degrees, with around 80% humidity (dropping to 70% by the end of the run). No breeze to speak of, but I wasn’t complaining (and neither were any of the other runners out on the course today) - that’s a solid 10-20 degrees cooler than we’re used to!

I drank a little gatorade on the way to the workout, and ate a Kudos bar - not much, about 100 calories, but it was pretty easy for me to get down. I have a couple more brands to try, but so far that’s been the nicest to eat in the early morning by far. I had one Gu in the pocket of my shorts, and another one to take just before we started.

Once at RunTex I chatted with a variety of folk for a few minutes, then at 6:30 Gilbert sent us off to warm up. Atypically he said that we should just do “whatever” as long as we were back by our 7AM start. I chose to run down to the foot of the Pfluger bridge, a little over half a mile, and run back to Auditorium shores. We did our usual set of drills, then I trotted back to RunTex to go to the bathroom, and to grab my initial Gu and some water to wash it down with. When I got back down, the crowd was walking slowly East. Gilbert led us down to the cruise docks; I didn’t hear his explanation, but I assume from the distance that this was cutting down the standard loop to an even ten miles.

He gave us a few words of wisdom, pretty much what you’d expect under the circumstances: go out easy, stay strong, good form, and we should be able to speed things up over the last two miles if we’ve run smart. Then all of a sudden we were off! I had previously come up with an elaborate series of split goals, but they were all tossed by the wayside in about 20 seconds. I was just going to run comfortably hard, and see how I did, at least through the first mile and the Riverside hill.

We actually stayed in a pack for about the first half mile. After that point the faster people started pulling away; my Garmin reported that I was doing around a 7:50 though, which I thought was probably if anything a little fast. I backed off on the effort a little, then after the first mile had to pick it back up for the hill. It is getting easier, but it still slowed me down, and the folk ahead of me - I thought it was Jan and Thon - started to pull off a bit. By the time I got to Pleasant Valley they were a solid 10-15 seconds ahead, but I was still running slightly sub 8:00 so I let them go, and ran my own race. I knew that Carrie was behind me somewhere, but she didn’t seem to be ready to pass me just yet, and I carried on.

Once I was passed the two mile point I was really wanting some water. I was also getting a little concerned, Carrie was maybe 15 seconds behind me and the last time we did a fast run like this, she came from behind and I wasn’t able to catch her. She also had some really kick ass strength on the 22 miler last weekend. I was concentrating on running smart, and running tangents, forked right and headed up the dam over the lake. This wasn’t actually as bad as I’d remembered, and it felt like next to no time that I was heading down over the other side towards the parking lot, where I could see our first Gatorade stop.

Whew! I took a cup of extra strength Gatorade Endurance, and before I could follow it down with a cup of water Carrie was right there with me. I took my fluids as fast as I could then tore out of there, trying to maintain my distance - I think I succeeded. Back towards the West now, wanting to pick it up a little bit but not too much, I ran across a couple of very short climbs that I remember teasing Jason about: not so funny now. Past the water fountain that always runs warm, through the baseball fields, and onto the footbridge. I kept my ears peeled to try to hear Carrie coming up behind me, but I’d either got a pretty solid lead or she was running much quieter than I was.

As I saw MoPac in the distance, I started to fumble for my second Gu packet, reaching it out of my shorts without losing my key fob. I got it out and opened as I came up to Bernard waiting with our second set of fluids. This time I took three drinks, one of water to wash down my Gu, one of the high powered Gatorade, and a third to wash down the Gatorade. Carrie took either two or one cups and actually headed off about five seconds before I did; this is where she passed me during the hard five miles previously though, so I caught right back up to her and accelerated, getting out ahead again. I mean, this is supposed to be simulating race conditions…

A few minutes later I was watching someone up ahead in a blue top. I wasn’t sure who they were, but I thought it was a Gazelle shirt - and I was right. I was only running very slightly faster than she was, but over the next mile or two I reeled her in until she started to lag right around the North side of the Pfluger footbridge. I passed her handily at that point, but 5 seconds later she was back with me and said that she was going to try to hang with me from here on out. Gee, thanks! Actually, she’d been a pretty big help for the last 15 minutes, so I couldn’t complain that much - and I was glad for her that she wasn’t going to lag off. I’d felt tempted to a couple of times for sure, and it was knowing that Carrie was right behind me that kept me going.

By this point we only had 4-5 minutes to go until the next waterstop near Austin High. Same drill as before, three cups with the middle one being Gatorade. Carrie got to the stop before we left, but we were both pretty quick to throw down and high tail it out of there. Not that I don’t enjoy her company on long runs but, as I said, it was a race… We stayed together as we came around over the MoPac bridge, then she picked it up and I found myself hanging behind more and more. At this point my breathing was down below 2/2; I tried to keep it close to that until the last half mile at least.

Finally we came back past the South side of the Pfluger bridge. Traffic was annoying, but I can’t honestly say it held me up for more than a couple of seconds at a time, and I was probably being just as annoying to the folk just out for a comfortable stroll. I slogged my way up the final hill, took that sharp left back onto the trail (dodging around some more slow traffic at that point), then tried at least to bring things up a little.

As soon as I passed the quarter mile mark I brought my effort up some more, thinking to myself, “Hey, last lap! Only 400M left to go!” After all, I can do 400M in 1:30 or so, right? The final boost came as I passed the SRV statue. By the time I saw Thon jogging towards me, some 15 seconds later, I was pretty focused. I also noticed someone off to the side filming us: that encouraged me to really pay attention to my form. My last 15 seconds went by at a blistering 6:03 pace, and I was so very happy to stop my watch as I cruised on by the finish line. I cheered Carrie on as she came in 30 seconds or so after I did, got something to drink, then ran a nice five strides before heading back to RunTex.

Afterwards, Gilbert gathered us around him and told us that, by and large, we should be able to maintain this pace on race day. Here I am, feeling pretty good about setting a ten mile PR, and he’s telling me that I ran it at marathon pace? Well, as he continues to talk about mental preparation and stamina, I have to concede that he may have a point. After all, I finished the run, did my strides, and not five miunutes afterwards I’m feeling really pretty good. This gives a pretty good indication that I didn’t leave it all out there on the course.

My final time was 1:18:23. If I assume that we did run a measured ten miles (its much more likely that Gilbert simply measured back the .21 mile overage instead, but whatever), then my final pace was a pretty decent 7:50. Most of the Garmins registered closer to 10.1 miles, but I’ll stick with 10.0 as a conservative estimate.

Once I got home I started to think about justification, too. McMillan puts me at a 3:39 marathon based on my performance today. My goal of 3:30 would require a 1:15 10 mile time, or a 7:30 pace - 20 seconds faster. Today’s run happened under relatively warm conditions (even if they were cooler than I had anticipated), on a soft trail, with uneven fluids, with no “race energy” or other racers to pace with, and I was obviously holding back at least somewhat. Knocking 20 seconds off doesn’t seem too unreasonable. Scary. On the other hand, I’ve heard that NYC has some hills to it, so who knows. Still, its not out of the realm of possibility.

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