Friends, this month has been and will continue to be rough in terms of work and travel, but I was determined to get this race report up in a more timely manner than the last one! Please enjoy.
Why did I sign up to run this race?
Like last year, SacTown 10 Miles was not only a Pacific Association long course race but also the USATF Masters National Championship race for the 10 mile distance, so I signed up to compete with my team. Last year I ran 1:16:47 here so I thought it would be fun to see if I could beat that time.
And then what happened?
Ugh. A month+ plus of injury drama, friends. In case you missed it, I started having issues with my right ankle/outside calf a few days before Victory Half in February; I took some time off after that during our Jackson Hole ski trip hoping it would heal, but as of mid-March it was still too painful to run more than a couple of miles on at a time. On March 13 I sent frantic email to my coach about how I'd had to bail on a run at 2.5 miles because of the pain and I couldn't see how I could possibly run 10 miles in just a few weeks, let alone actually race. There was nothing to do, though, really, but try to let it heal and test it out every few days with a little jogging to see if it seemed like things were on the right track. (I no longer have access to a spin bike or elliptical so I didn't even really have a cross-training option.)
So, for the most part, March running looked like short, easy runs interspersed with rest days in an effort to let whatever was going on heal, and visits here and there to the chiro and massage therapist to see what they could do to speed things along or at least prevent things from getting worse. I think the turning point was around March 20 or so, when I was finally able to run four pain-free miles, then five the next day, and then six two days later. I could have cried with relief.
At that point there was no chance of a fast race thanks to my lack of training, but I still had hopes of being able to show up and finish 10 miles. On the 25th we tried a few short (three-minute) intervals of fast running, just to see if my leg could handle it. And lo, I was able to run 7.3 miles with 18 minutes total of fast-ish running (like, between 7:00-8:00 pace) with no pain at all and no soreness the next day. WOO!!
With just eight days to go, we stuck to short runs (4-6 miles) with just a few 60-second strides thrown in here and there, which all seemed to go well. At that point I knew I had a very good chance of being able to at least run the race and finish the 10-mile distance as part of the masters team. (And thankfully, there were several much faster ladies running, so it wasn't like there was a ton of pressure on me specifically to run fast since only the three fastest runners on each team are scored.)
Race Lead-Up:
On Saturday my teammate S and I drove up to Sac; I was volunteering at packet pickup 1:30-5:30pm, so we were there in plenty of time to get our bibs, deal with the registering and sorting out of teams, and chill for a while. I was actually let go from packet pickup a bit early, so got in a quick shakeout run before we were meeting our teammates for dinner.
And ugh, friends, I felt awful on this little three-mile jaunt. Like, arguably the longest three-mile run in recent memory. My legs felt stiff and heavy and I felt like it was taking me so much effort to run even 9:50-10:00 miles. And to cap it all off, I tripped over the one of the light rail tracks and scraped a giant bloody patch off my right knee, as I am prone to do at least once or twice a year. 🤦🏻♀️
After a tasty pasta dinner, we were back at the hotel by 9:00pm; I was super sleepy already, which I was glad about because it meant maybe I would actually get a solid night of sleep before we had to be up at 6:30am!
Race Day:
OK so I keep meaning to write a blog post about this but not having time--at the new year, I got myself a Whoop wrist band to see what insight it might give me about my recovery, which seems to be my biggest struggle in the last year in terms of running well. I promise I *will* write more about the details of this later, but the short version is that this little doohicky you wear on your wrist collects all kinds of super detailed physiological data, especially during workouts and in your last cycle of deep sleep before waking (where the data is most reliable). It then uses the data to generate a "recovery score" each morning, where 67%+ is "green" and indicates you are solidly recovered and primed to perform/take on a challenge; 34-66% is "yellow," indicating you are recovering reasonably well and in good shape for an easy run or moderately challenging workout; and 1-33% is "red," meaning your body is struggling to recovery and you're probably best served by an easy day or prioritizing rest.
Now, as I mentioned, I have been injured for most of the month and nearly all my running has been super easy. So with the exception of days when I haven't slept well (usually due to travel), my recovery has pretty much been in the green all this month, which had me thinking, "Hey, I may not be that fit, BUT at least I'll be pretty fresh and rested for this race!" So I kind of rolled my eyes when I looked at my Whoop score that morning & saw a "yellow" 58%. Even more ridiculous, Monday morning after the race, it was back up to 90%! I *never* recover that quickly after a hard effort, at least in the three months I've been wearing this thing.
(The blue line is strain, which is a logarithmic scale that goes from 0.1 [super easy] to 21 [incredibly high]. You can tell which day the race was because my strain for that day was 18.1.)
Now, the whole point of the Whoop recovery score is that so you can adjust your training plans a bit if you need to, but since I was going to run this 10 mile race no matter what, I just kind of sighed and tried to forget about it.
In any case, we got dressed, got our stuff together, headed down to the hotel breakfast for some carbs, & then jogged over to meet our teammates at the start near the capitol building.
Since this race was a USATF championship race, there was all kinds of fancy to-do around it, just like last year. We all had to submit proof of citizenship & DOB to USATF for approval and also register for drug testing & submit TUEs for any medications on the conditional or banned list. Masters championship runners once again got access to the same area as the elite runners, with chairs, food, water, and most importantly, a private bank of port-a-potties. There was no bag check for the open race since there was so much super close free street parking, so it was nice that they had a guarded area in the tent where we could leave stuff since the morning was chilly and my car was like 0.8 miles away at the hotel.
The course was the same as last year I think except that we ran it backwards. This meant that although we still had to run that horrible long, exposed out-and-back stretch, We at least ran it early in the race instead of at the end.
Alas, this comfortable toodling didn't last. I doubt it's a coincidence that all but one of the runs I've done this last month have been in the 4-6 range (all easy), and it was around mile 6 that things very suddenly got much harder and my pace splits started to creep upward. I started having a battle in my mind that went something like I can't keep running this hard, I need to ease up a bit vs. HELL NO, EASING UP JUST MEANS THIS DEATH MARCH IS GOING TO TAKE LONGER, FINISH AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE! So I would try to slow my level of effort, but it just, like, wouldn't work.
So yeah. Things just got harder and harder until I really felt like I was going to be crawling to the finish. I also started having some asthma problems, which doesn't happen often in races, but when it does, it *super* sucks. Ultimately I decided it was best to make sure I was able to finish under my own power, so I started walking through the water stops. Doing that let me run a bit faster when I did run (8:00-8:15ish pace) but it still felt like doing super hard mile repeats on the track. Thankfully I only had about three miles to go!
Finish line in sight. I can't underestimate how painful that last half mile was. Just brutual. 🤣
Happily, our top three runners were able to come in THIRD! In the nation! So freaking proud of them. 🥰 I can only hope to get healthy and fit enough in the future to contribute to such an accomplishment, but in the meantime, it sure is fun to get to do this with them as a team.
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