Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Race Report

I hope this post is not to badly writed but I am fealing reelly shattered. Yesturday I was up at 'stupid oclock' to do the Cherry Blossom 10 miler and today Holden, being the simpothetic sole he is, had me up at the same time again today doing a 1.5 hour ride before breakfast. Befor i slump over the keeboard here is my report;

The alarm went off at 0530. Race start was 7:40 for the the elite women and 7:50 for the elite men, there were then a number of waves leaving every couple of minutes thereafter. As I got out of bed I looked out of the window and the rain was pouring down. Wendy was undecided as to whether she was going to come along and one look at the weather put her off completely. I cannot claim that I was particularly motivated at that point either and I was fairly slow to eat my breakfast and leave the house. I took the metro into the city as the race attracted something like 13,000 racers which is just staggering. On the metro I bumped into Kathy and Dave from Team Z (tri team) and we headed in together.

We got off the metro at Federal Triangle which was only a short walk from the GW Monument, the new start location for the 36th Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run. The rain was still coming down heavily and I was reluctant to strip down to the singlet and shorts I had elected to run in. To help fend off the rain I decided I was going to wear a bin bag until just prior to the start. When I struggled to be able to punch a hole through the bag for my head I began to wonder just how good I was going to be during the run.

Holden had made it crystal clear that I was to push hard during this run and I should be aiming to run at my Lactate Threshold throughout. If you go back to my last Cadence Run Blood Lactate Test my lactate threshold zone is from 164 to 171 bpm. The training zones table goes on to say that at 171 bpm I should be able to run 7:02 to 6:46 min miles. I had decided to set my dream goal as 65 minutes and my back up goal as 70 minutes. I had no reason to think I could run 6:30 min miles for 10 miles which would be needed for a 65 min finish but it seemed like such a nice clean goal. According to my training zones I should be able to maintain 7:00 min miles at LT so that gave me my more realistic goal of 70 min.

My wave of 2,500! runners was the red wave but between you and me I snook into the yellow wave corral in front. This was my first 10 mile run and when I registered I had no idea what time I could run. Following a winter of Cadence Coaching I was aiming for a quicker time than I predicted. As some of my team mates were starting out from the yellow zone I decided to join them. Looking around I was glad that I had moved as there were clearly plenty of slower athletes around, even in the yellow corral, and unlike Myrtle Beach I really didn't want to be threading my way through slower runners throughout the race.

I managed not to get kicked out and after the gun went off we found ourselves very quickly squeezed into the narrow road entering Hains Point. Hains Point is a big spit of land opposite the Reagan Airport and there is a very smooth tarmacked road around its circumference which is lined by Cherry Blossom on either side. Hains Point is not far from my office so I often find myself running around it at lunch times but yesterday morning the 3 and a bit miles seemed to be longer than I remembered.

Within a few hundred metres of the start I found my heart rate at 170 to 171 bpm and steady. I did have to overtake quiet a few slower runners at the start but after only a mile or two I found myself surrounded by pretty similar paced runners. It was clear by the time I got around Hains Point that the 6:30 min miles were not coming off at this heart rate and knowing where my LT was I didn't want to up the pace. In fact the opposite happened and my heart rate dropped a beat or two for the middle few miles which were probably my slowest.

By the time I had worked my way back around the tidal basin I was over half way and on the out and back past the Kennedy Center I managed to get back up to pace. The course took us over Memorial Bridge but as we came back across the bridge a slight uphill coupled with a gusty wind colluded to get my heart rate up and a bit of a 'sicky feeling' in the pit of my stomach.

As we headed back toward the wonderful finish location at the foot of the GW Monument there were signs marking 1200m to run, 600m to run etc. At 600m I decided to pick up the pace for the much cliched 'strong finish'. I don't know how they measured those 600m but they were long and again I began to feel sick. It was amazing that at 171 bpm although I was in a state of steady pain it was nothing I couldn't cope with but as soon as my heart rate rose a few beats I would feel sick.

I crossed the line in 68:35. That meant an average of 6:51 min miles which is smack-bang in the middle of Cadence's predicted pace for my LT and I ran the race pretty much dead on my target heart rate throughout. From that perspective it was a very successful race. I ran much closer to the wind than at Myrtle Beach but some how the finish seemed far less satisfying. Perhaps it was the mechanical nature of the race and my first marathon had that added sense of achievement. I am not sure my head was ever really in the race and I didn't take in my surroundings as I concentrated on maintaining my pace. The weather was depressing but actually a very good temperature for running and the rain did let up for the hour and a bit I ran.

The race marked the end of a week in which I had had a couple of disappointing training sessions and a bit of a slump. Please do not think that it was not a good race, it was.

To round out a long day Wendy and I went to watch a local Crit (Criterium) Bike Road Race at Tysons Corner. As I mentioned in my last post I have recently got my Road Race Licence and I have just (20 minutes ago) signed up for my first race on May 3rd (I am also on the waiting list for a Crit later in May). Not really knowing what to expect when I turn up at a road race we went to watch the Pro Men and Women race and get a feeling for what 'goes on'. The racing was interesting and I got to meet Ken Young, a local Marine Sergeant and very successful rider, who Brian Walton at Cadence had put me in contact with for advice on local group rides. He had a good race and was just pipped at the post following a sprint finish.



My first race will be at Poolesvilles and it is a 42 mile road race which is well known for a gravel section that is often the scene of a crash or two. Not ideal for my first race perhaps but it was the only date that fit. To try and reduce the number of times I will get shouted at during the race I will try and get in some group rides with local road cyclists.