I ran the Bolder Boulder 10K for the seventh time on
May 31, 2004.
My strategy for the race was to run even splits of 5 minute
kilometers, to try to beat my 10K PR of 49:56. I had
optimistically written 49:00 as my expected finish time on
the race entry form, expecting fully not to do that well.
My training had not gone as well as I had hoped. Ever since
running my first marathon back in December 2003, I settled
back to about 25 miles per week, but it seemed that my
weekly miles had been decreasing steadily, primarily due to
lack of time for getting in a long run on weekends. During
the month of May, I was down to about 15 miles per week.
Also, I was having a difficult time running 8 minute miles
during training.
The Bolder Boulder uses a wave start, with qualifying times
used for seeding into the faster front waves. I had
qualified for the sub-49:15 wave with a 23:21 time in a 5K
race about 10 months previous. I always start too fast and
fade in the latter miles of races I run, so for sure I
didn't think I could make my "predicted" time of 49:00.
Since the Bolder Boulder is the only race that I have run
that marks both kilometers and miles, and I decided to use
kilometer splits rather than mile splits to pace myself,
because kilometers would allow for more opportunities to
adjust my pace.
The day was relatively cool, with a slight breeze, and the
usual Colorado low humidity. It made for perfect
conditions. I ran the race with a co-worker, who was in
the same qualifying wave and also hoped to finish in under
50 minutes.
We started off about halfway back in our wave, I didn't
want to get up at the front and impede those runners that
truly had a shot a 49 minutes. Our pace for the first two
kilometers was about what I expected, 4:39 and 4:54,
(about 7:30 and 7:54 minutes per mile respectively), and
really close to the pace I ran two years ago when I had
set my PR. At that point I expected my pace to start to
decrease throughout the rest of the race, like it does in
every race I run.
I was in for a surprise. Kilometer 3 was 4:44 and kilometer
4 was 5:02, right on pace. To my amazement, I didn't slow
down. Here are my splits for the entire race:
4:39 4:54 4:44 5:02 4:52 4:54 4:46 4:52 4:53 4:34
I am especially please with my final split of 4:34 -- I'm
usually running out of steam by then, and it has the tough
uphill into the stadium, yet it was my fastest split.
I am elated with my finishing time of 48:11 (my watch),
beating my PR by
5:40, and at least two minutes better than my expected time.
I'm 46, I'm not supposed to be setting PR's.
Looking back, I think I did better than expected for
several reasons:
Marathon training I started on at the same pace I
always do for a 10K, but the long distance training for
a marathon allowed me to keep that same pace through
out the run.
Month long taper I (unintentionally) tapered for this race
when I pulled back to 15 miles/week.
Cool,breezy weather Always improves performance
Running with someone We paced each other. When I felt
myself slowing down, I pushed myself to keep up. Likewise
for my co-worker.
Using K splits Allowed for more constant monitoring of
pace.
Overall, the race was great experience (as are all PR
setting races :-). Boulder has always been one of my
favorite road races, it is well organized, does a great job
of handling so many runners, and I always run a fast time.
I'll be back every year I can and try to keep setting PRs,
at least until the years catch up to me.
David Pinedo