100% Irish for a Day TCM 10 Mile

Race day for the 2010 100% Irish for a Day TCM 10 Mile was foggy and raw, roads were wet but it was a great time as usual. I intended this as another training run and was hoping to cruise in at about 1:06:00 or so and not over-do it. I ended up at 1:05:26 or thereabouts with no major blow-outs and no lingering side effects.

Race start was 9:00am at the Lake Harriet bandshell so I had plenty of time for pre-race preparation at home. After getting race gear on and organizing some post-race change of clothes for my family to carry down to the finish for me, I took an easy mile shuffle down to the start for some last minute stretching and just a bit more warm-up which was perfect. Roads were definitely wet and pothole filled and I was a bit worried about that.

I did a bit of light stretching inside the bandshell itself, dumped my sweats and then did a few strides in front of the start line in the few minutes before the start. Starting line itself was jammed with people but it was pretty easy to slide into the front. I was feeling good at the start, which can be dangerous and I shot out of there like I was racing 400 meters in the Olympic Trials ... which meant a 5:30 first mile for me, totally not what I planned to do for the day. So I backed way off to my target pace, and even then it took probably another 5 miles before I was back into a tempo run, my original intention for the day.

The rest of the race is kind of a blurr and really do not remember much until the last mile or so when I was thinking that I was ready to be done for the day and get some post-race water and snacks. My GPS was not tracking very well during the race but here are my mile splits: 5:30 6:28 6:34 6:38 6:32 6:27 6:38 6:41 6:48 6:22.

Next race? Not sure. 10 Mile race in Chicago is end of April and I may try to find a shorter race in the meantime. Otherwise its time to start adding intervals and tempo runs to weekly workouts. Some time in May it will be time to start racing.