As promised, here is the race report on my 10k run ...
Showed up to the race Sunday morning. It was snowing heavily, about 32 degrees (or so I was told, it
felt colder). The race was held in the memory of the late Joe Kleinerman, who died peacefully in his
sleep at the age of 91.
Met some team-mates on the way to the race. My team members had for the most part shown up -- this
was a team points race. Did an easy warmup jog ... mostly to keep myself warm. Saw Global (who was
wearing shorts) near the start line. Came over and chatted for a while. Everyone was nervous, and
hoping that the race would go ahead, and they wouldn't make it a "fun run". The process of making
these events "fun runs" appears to be motivated by litigation-consciousness more than anything else
-- not technical issues.
Close to the start of the race, the organiser announces that it will be a "fun run". Global is
unhappy, most of the club runners including myself are disappointed. I deceided to go ahead and race
anyway. Not sure what Global did -- I didn't see him in the race. Pretty sure old Joe would have
wanted us to race. I decided to just go and race inspite of the conditions. It appears my teammates
did the same, they all had their stopwatches going.
So the race started. Since it was a "fun run", some of the walkers decided to seed themselves near
the front, so the start was terribly slow. There was snow on the ground. Now I'll try to describe
this in a way that satisfies people like Anders, who speak languages where there are 125 different
ways to say "snow" ...
The snow was a mix of fresh-fallen dry powdery snow, foot-trampled dry snow, and harder dry snow
which had been packed down by the weight of a slow-moving car, lightly coated with a thin layer of
fresh snow. So the ground wasn't very slippery but the surface was still somewhat slow because the
powder isn't a very stable surface. For the most part, I tried to run on the firmer packed snow, it
seemed to cause less energy loss.
First mile marker comes up. After a very crowded and slow start, I passed the marker in 6:43. I
attributed most of this to the slow start, but then the second mile marker comes up in 6:32. This
mile felt like a reasonable effort, comparable in intensity to runs at about 6:20 pace completed
over the same terrain. At this point, I decide not to worry too much about PRs, or the clock, and
just run my best. I start pushing the pace a little harder, get to mile 3 in 6:18, and then start
picking off runners. Mile 4 goes by in 6:18. I do more of the same during mile 5, but the 5 mile
mark is missing-in-action, or maybe I'm thinking too hard about the runners up front to notice it.
Little by little, I real them in. Some time later, I know from my watch and position on the course
that we must have passed mile 5. I'm overtaken by some runners from rival clubs who appear to have
seen that marker, I try to hang on. They gain some ground, but I'm able to bring them in and
overtake them at the 6 mile mark. Then they bring out the big guns and go for a finishing kick. I'm
game, I do the same. I end up crossing the line in what's close to a photo finish with one of them
-- no idea which of us was first, but that's beside the point -- both of us *raced* and raced hard,
which is what it's all about. Finished with a relatively slow 40:11. Adjusting for snow, I'd say
it's comparable to about 39:09 in dry conditions, which more or less matches my 4 mile effort.
Cheers and thanks for reading,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗