Oktoberfest 2008

I ran the Oktoberfest 10K on Saturday. The original plan was for the whole family to come with me to the race and attend the fest afterwards… but the night before I decided that wasn’t really fair for the family. It is hard to get 2 kids and a baby moving at 6 AM. I had already paid for the run though… said I headed off for the hour drive alone.

A few days ago I predicted 7:59 was a reasonable goal. Though I have been running regularly for a bit again, I have only done one speed workout… and that was last Tuesday. About a month ago my 10K time in a race was 8:36.

I started off the first mile at about 7:35… and everything felt great. Of course… it was a little down hill and the first mile is always easy. Miles 2 though 4 were a wakeup call though. Mile two dropped to about 8 minutes a mile… right on pace… but mile 3 was about 8:30 and I really didn’t feel like I was letting up at all. Yes… it was into the wind… but my thoughts of 7:59 were pretty much gone at that point. I tucked in behind someone else and just held on.

Having someone block the wind for about a mile gave my legs new life… and when we finally turned away from the wind… I sprang by my blocker and sped off. Unfortunately… that is where the hills were. I focused on attacking the hills. I just read an article in Runner’s World about how to run hills… and I focused on what I remembered. Hands relaxed… arms 90 degree angle swinging directly forward and back… head up, focused on powering over the top, saving enough energy at the bottom to make sure I didn’t burn out before the top.

Right before the start of the hill there was a group of runners that were catching me… but as we hit the bottom of the hill I just motored away. I kept powering up the hills faster than I was running into the wind and soon I notice I was back running under 8 minutes per mile. Up hill.

When I hit the top I kept the pressure on and was soon going 7:30… which is about what I ran for mile 6. My final pace… exactly 7:59. Talk about self actualized.
While I am not too concerned about speed right now… I will try to work more speedwork into my routine… strides and whatnot. I don’t think I will be racing again for about a month at the Blue Lake 9 miler. Last time I ran it in 7:59... (there is that number again). I hope to do a little better this year.