15K Race Report

Great race today! Achieved what I wanted to, and had plenty left over! :)

Arrived at venue at 6:30am - 35F, raining, dark and foggy... ugh!
Ran a 3M warm up... 8:45/mi pace - with two 400m intervals at threshold pace (6:55/mi) to get the metabolism up and running. In the dark, in the woods... foggy and raining - really a special little warm-up!

Race plan (never ran the 15K distance before - so this was a little bit of an experiment):
First 1/3 (3.1Mi) - hold back (7:05 target), next 1/3 - hold pace (6:55 target), final 1/3 - see what I have left and go for it. Hoping to finish about 1H03M - 1H06M.

Actual race result: BINGO! First 1/3 - right at 7:05 as planned. Next 1/3 - slightly faster than target (6:51/mi)... and I had plenty for the last 3.1miles... averaged about 6:40/mi - last mile = 6:30 / mi. So every mile got faster today - perfect! Waiting for official time, but it was low 1H03M... 1st in my age group... and somewhere in the top 10 overall (5th or 6th I think).

There were a couple of times in the race for me to employ tactics... as I kept speeding up and passing people, there were a few that tried to "hang on" or "reverse the pass". I knew I was near the front of the race - and wanted to stay there. I was getting bunched up with a few runners between miles 4 and 5... waited for the section with lots of curves, to shoot ahead and get "out of sight, out of mind" from them and stay away. That part worked! Around mile 7... I had one runner (I think was in my age group) that I couldn't shake from my shoulder... he was creeping up on me again.... side by side... I waited for a little downhill/uphill to take off... and push it HARD to break his will... it finally worked... but then I couldn't relax - I could still see him 200yd back... hanging on - which kept the pressure on me to keep my pace - but he never closed the gap again! This added an exciting dimension to my race experience - besides finding out how I would race at this distance.

Finished feeling good, like I worked, but had plenty left to give - either more distance at that pace, or could have gone faster in the race. Liked that feeling a lot!

Did a 2M cool down afterwards... felt good.

So, I consider today, a great success! Got out of it what I wanted to. My VDOT score for the day is a 50... with the conditions, add another point... so I'm now at VDOT 51 (up one from January and up 3 points from this time last year! WOO HOO!