10-Miler Report

As promised, here is a report of how my attempt at the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler went today.

Strangely, I was pretty nervous going into this thing. I didn't sleep much last night because of that but also because I was afraid that I was going to wake up an hour late due to daylight savings time.

So my day began at about 4:30 a.m. and I couldn't really get back to sleep. I got out of bed an hour later and prepared for the race. There's a lot more preparation for a distance race than you would imagine, especially for someone who doesn't run a lot of them. By 6:30, I was on the Metro (DC subway) and headed toward the Smithsonian Metro stop that is right by my office which is where I was meeting the rest of my team. At 7:15 we headed over to the starting area and it was PACKED. I knew there were going to be a lot of people, but 15,000 people in a park is just ridiculous. After all the elite runners started, it was our turn at 8 a.m.

The course, as is pretty much any course in our nation's capital, is beautiful. It started out on Ohio Drive--a road that winds along the Potomac River. After less than a mile, however, it peels off to the right (east) and heads up Independence Avenue towards the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. It loops back around and down Independence Avenue, this time going west towards Virginia, and then heads over the Memorial Bridge which leads you directly into Arlington National Cemetery. After you make what is essentially a huge u-turn, you head back over the bridge and take a left at the Lincoln Memorial, or north onto Rock Creek Parkway past the Kennedy Center. The route then follows the parkway for about 3 miles before u-turning and leading you south on the parkway. After doubling back, the road splits, you go right, and find yourself back on Ohio Drive where the start line is now the finish line.

I mentioned earlier that I was hoping to run this race in 90 minutes--a 9-minute mile pace. The only 10-miler I've run before now was four years ago in Santa Barbara, where I lived for six years. For that run, it was pretty good and I ended up finishing in about 80 minutes. So you can see that four years later, after all the health crap that I've been through, 90 minutes was a legitimate goal.

My thought was to conserve energy as much as possible until the turnaround on the parkway at mile 6.5. I did alright but ended up keeping a pace at the beginning that I hadn't intended--it was about 8 minutes a mile, I found out later. By the time I got to the halfway point, my time was 46:47 (or something like that). I knew I had to speed it up a little bit if I had any hope of beating my 90-minute goal. So I did. After the turnaround at mile 6.5, there was a portion of the race that was slightly downhill, and while it seemed others were holding back, I took advantage of the gravity and lengthened my stride almost without effort. By the time I got to mile 7, my time had been trimmed and I was at 1:03:00 roughly. I kept the tempo up knowing that I needed only to sustain a 9-minute pace to reach my goal--thankfully, I was right back on pace. Then came the late surge from the pack and I turned it up yet again. This last portion had a few hills (not many) that were generally just gradual upward slopes. Again, the pack just kept pushing. If running with 10,000+ other people doesn't give you a herd mentality, I don't know what does. Trying desperately to keep pace with those around me, I kept charging toward the finish line which was now two miles away.

(On a side note, if you ever go to a race like this, do not stand at about mile 8.5 and yell, "Only 200 more yards! You can do it!" like some idiot did today. Luckily, I knew he was wrong but there were others around me who started sprinting to the finish prematurely.)

So at mile 9, I'm sucking wind and it feels like we are collectively running a 6-minute mile, which, of course, we are not. This stretch was horrible because there were a lot of gradual bends and you expected to see the finish line...just...around...the...bend...and time and time again it was not there. Any mile past 5 is pretty good because your body pretty much shuts down the pain sensors and you just go without feeling anything, for me anyway. Once you get to the last mile, however, you start to imagine what it will be like to take a nice long drink of Gatorade and that's all you can think about.

After running what felt like two miles since I passed mile 9, the finish line came into view--a long ways down the road. Even this stretch wasn't close to 200 yards! It was more like a quarter mile, at least. I literally wanted to vomit at this point and almost did, until I realized that the clock was somewhere around 1:27:30. For a second I was content with any time under 1:30:00 and I started to slow down. But then I realized that I wanted to get under 1:28:00 so I poured it on--as much as a person can after running 9.98 miles. I picked up my pace, lengthed my stride, and actually started to get a headache from a lack of oxygen. BUT, I crossed the line at 1:27:59. Sweetness.

About 30 seconds later I hear my name and I realize that one of the guys I had been training with came in just behind me. I had beaten him by 28 seconds which I really did not think possible. I was lucky that he hadn't seen me approaching the finish line, though, because if he had he would have really poured it on and given me a run for my money.

One thing that I failed to mention earlier is that with 10,662 runners starting from the same spot, it's impossible to begin simultaneously. Consequently, we found ourselves WAY back in the starting chute. When the gun went off, it took us about three minutes to get to the starting line. And due to modern technology, the clock for each individual runner (remember the tracking chip I mentioned in the previous post) begins when he or she crosses that line. So, instead of a time of 1:27:59, my time was trimmed to 1:24:37. A pace of 8:28 per mile.

For me, this is a big accomplishment. I had built this event up so much in my mind as a symbol of me being back to "normal." In essence, by doing well in this race, I was saying...no, shouting, "I'm back!" And it felt wonderful, satisfying, exhilirating, all of the above.

The design and resiliency of the human body and spirit that God infused in me is all that made this possible. It's nothing short of amazing that after two surgeries and seven weeks of both radiation and chemotherapy, the body is able to come back alive with hard work and (for those of you that know me) just maybe some old-fashioned stubbornness.

I am so utterly sore right now I'm wondering why I ever thought this was a good idea. Of course, I quickly remember that the accomplishment (for me) is so utterly unbelievable that I wanted to do it, I needed to do it. I needed this just to prove that I could. The crazy thing is that in spite of, maybe because of, all the pain that I'm feeling in my muscles right now, I'm considering training for the Marine Corps Marathon here in DC in October.

I'll keep you posted.