Rockin' the Beach 10K Race Report

Race information

• What? Rockin' the Beach 10K
• When? January 28, 2017
• How far? 10K
• Where? Long Beach, CA
• Website: https://charliealewineracing.jimdo.com/races/
• Strava activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/847143530

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	38:30	Yes
B	Sub-40	Yes
C	Just complete my first race	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	6:14
2	6:01
3	5:57
4	6:02
5	6:15
6	6:12
0.2	5:33

Training

I'm currently in the last few weeks of Pfitz's 12/47 in preparation for my first half ever on February 12th. Disclaimer: I've been a sprinter the last 10 years and the past 5 months have been my first foray into distance running (not counting one season of high school XC). I did some base building, up to 30mpw, for a couple of months before I dove into the program at the end of November. I have been far from perfect in hitting every workout; I started strong, had two down mileage weeks in the teen's due to personal problems, back up for a couple weeks, down with respiratory illness for 10 days, and finally back up again. Because of that, I've missed a decent chunk of mileage and workouts throughout the past 10 weeks. I was a little wary going into this race, knowing that I haven't been as solid in the work up.

Pre-race

Was up at 4:45 after only 5 hours of sleep, had half a cup of coffee, pounded a bunch of water, and ate peanut butter toast and a banana. Headed out a little after 6 to drive the 45 minutes to Long Beach from Los Angeles. Checked in around 7, dropped my stuff off in the car, did 10 min of easy running, put my racing flats on, and ended with a couple strides and stretching. (I had no idea what to do before a distance race...) This was a really low-key event, with everything from 5K up to marathon. It's run on the beach front walkway, so you get a view of the ocean while you weave between people every so often - it keeps it exciting, right? I stood in the front and the director had everyone line up, he yelled go, and we were off.

Race

Mile 1

Right away, four of us shot out pretty quickly: Orange Shoes, Backwards Hat, Pink Shoes and myself. Because it was a mix of 5 and 10K runners, I didn't know who was running my race or not. Even while I tried to pull myself back and not get caught up in a fast start, my first half mile was just under 6:00 pace and I quickly overcame Pink Shoes, while Backwards Hat and Orange Shoes quickly gapped me. I pulled too far back to 6:25 range for the back half of the first mile and had to readjust again.

Split: 6:14

Mile 2

After the first mile I was out in no-man's land. Backwards Hat had what seemed like 30-40m on me and didn't seem to be gapping me much, but I certainly wasn't pulling him in. I started to feel more confident and got into the mentality that, "Hey, this isn't just a hard tempo workout, this is a race. Let's go!" Pace dropped down and I settled into a rhythm. Turns out Orange Shoes was a 5K guy, so now it was just Backwards Hat and I going at it alone.

Split: 6:01

Mile 3

I was still feeling pretty good at this point. Aerobically things were just fine, but I could tell my legs were starting to feel, well, not as fresh. Just focused on Backwards Hat and used him to pull me along, even as he maintained the distance on me. Some encouraging words from walkers and marathoners helped, plus I knew the turn around was ahead and at that point, I'm halfway done!

Split: 5:57

Mile 4

The turn around was really sharp and I wanted to make the most of it, but definitely threw me off a little. Kept to the pace and kept my eyes up on Backwards Hat still, knowing that I was headed back and was feeling alright.

Split: 6:02

Mile 5

I'll admit, this is where my wheels fell off a little bit. I knew that we had passed the 5K turn around point and that I was close to finishing, but all I could feel were my arms getting increasingly heavy and my legs starting to feel pretty gnarly. I kept thinking of the lyrics from "Lose Yourself" by Eminem, specifically, "His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy." I kept bouncing up to 6:25-6:30 range, then I'd drop back down to 6:10's, back and forth.

Split: 6:15

Mile 6 and close

So the Eminem lyrics didn't really go away in the sixth mile, but I knew that if I was going to have a chance at my goal, I needed to focus and collect myself. I really focused on relaxing my breathing, keeping my arms loose and eyes up. At this point, Backwards Hat had opened his lead and I lost sight of him, and it was up to me to keep myself honest. I felt a little surge of pride in the back half of this mile, knowing that if I didn't buckle down, I was only going to let myself down and I didn't want that. The last quarter mile I could see the bathrooms by the start and knew, as a sprinter, that I still had another gear and a kick in me. So, I dug down and didn't look at my watch, trusting that I was going to hit the goal.

Split: 6:12 (plus 0.2 at 5:33)

Final time: 37:52

Post-race

I crossed the line, got my little medal (neat!), grabbed a cup of water, and walked to my car to switch shoes and cool down. My watch had the whole run at 6.27, so I went with the 10K time it came back with. I knew that I was going faster than I anticipated being able to, but I was still pleasantly surprised to have hit and gone under my A goal. My workouts have been solid the past couple of weeks so I knew I was in alright shape, but I was worried that all the time off (and lack of sleep) was going to hurt me. My goal for the half is 1:25, so this was a nice confidence booster. I'm still worried about it as it will be my first go at that distance, but now I have a benchmark!

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