Bayou City Classic 10k - Race Report

A crisp morning mid 40s with winds 8-10 mph - 8 am start, 1560 runners total, my wife joined me for the drive and wait around at the startline getting there about an hour early. It was pretty entertaining watching the different costumes as many dress up for this event.

I had talked in a previous report about this turbo-drive I seemed to have on Tuesday in a workout - I had pretty much seen this go away in my Thursday/Friday workouts before the race so I wasn't really expecting it would still be there although I was kinda hoping it was still there.

I wasn't really sure what pace to go for because of the uncertainty around this turbo-drive thing - somewhere between 5:38 pace based on what I thought I could have done at the 1/2 marathon couple weeks back or 5:20 pace based on a workout done on Tuesday. So I set my race plan basis heartrate which is a bit tricky for a short anaerobic race like a 10k because the heartrate tends to be rising most of the race instead of quickly getting to a lower steadystate in a longer race. Alarms I programmed into my Garmin: mile 1, 5:25-5:35, Mile 2-3 HR 172-176, Mile 4-5 HR 174-178, Mile 6,6.2 HR 174-Max. So here is how it played out:

Mile Pace HR
Race Start - Sean Wade joins the front line - I introduce myself and shake hands - ok it might be a couple years until he needs to watch out for me but I figured he should start knowing who I am :-).

1 5:32 159 Started out in the buildings - first quarter mile was right with the front pack which didn't feel too fast but I figured it must be so I backed off a bit - about this time the garmin started being more accurate on my pace and I found I was pretty much on target. Finished the mile about where I wanted to be.
2 5:20 173 Switched to targetting a 174 heartrate which proved to be too early to do this - I'm thinking now it takes a good 2 miles to get the heartrate up to target on a 10k so trying to do it after the 1 mile marker was too early - ended up running mile 2 a bit too fast - passed a couple guys but then seemed to be slightly slowing down.
3 5:41 175 I could tell I was slowing and pushed just a little harder than the 174 target. I was definately not gaining on anyone in fact there seemed a steady stream of guys passing me - seemed about 1-2 people per mile.
4 5:48 176 I was feeling some pain - just kept focussing on the next mile marker - stay strong to the next one - It seemed there was a slight headwind for 4,5,6 but I checked the wind direction and it was from the North and the race ran out West and back East so should have only been crosswind - probably my imagination - I think I'm still loosing 1 to 2 places per mile.
5 5:48 175 Really just like mile 4 but more painful.
6 5:48 176 I'm going back and forth with a guy this mile - he passes me kinda half-hearted - then I pass him back - then he passes me back - then there is an overpass near the end of the mile - we stay steady going up the hill and I blow by him going down the other side. At the milemarker the next guy is just at that point of - maybe if I push REAL hard I can catch him.
6.2 1:11 178 (5:08 pace) I try to keep the speed going off the hill - I'm pushing hard but not quite REAL hard - not sure if I even had that in me as I was pretty beat - but I did close a little on the next guy - but not quite enough and I finished a few seconds behind him.

Final time 35:11 - 5:40 pace.

- First time getting a VDOT >60 except the Houston marathon (VDOT 60.4).
- PR by exactly 1:00 minute over the Turkey Trot in November.
- CR by 4:43 over this same race last year
- Unofficial PR in the first 5k - 17:13 vs my PR is 17:28.
- At the split I was in 14th and ended in 17th overall so I gave up ONE place per mile on the slower 17:58 2nd 5k.
- 3th place in my age group not counting Sean Wade since I think he won the Open and Jon Butler since he's actually 45 so in the next age group. Turns out 2nd place 3 seconds in front of me - had I known I'll bet I could have found 3 more seconds somewhere in me - but not much more. The results they had posted after the race showed me 4th place for my age group and I didn't stick around for the awards - we wanted to get home for some kid activities - when I looked up the official results later it showed me 3rd. I found my award on my chair at work Monday (Thanks Al).

Looking at the plot of my HR vs Pace - the turbo-drive from Tuesday definately was completely gone today - I plotted 4 of the miles (two ended up being on top of each other) as the first 2 miles the HR had not go up to a steady state yet so I didn't include them.



As I've already mentioned the easy runs Thursday/Friday (blue datapoints) pretty much told me not to expect it on race day but I was kinda hoping anyway. The 10k points (Pink) pretty much align with the 2/17 speed level.

Next race (actually a long workout as I won't be racing) is the Seabrook Marathon next Sunday. I'm planning to see if I can replecate the March 4th turbo-drive with some heat training Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday - if it happens to be hot/humid those days - great - if not I'll wear sweats while running or something to make it hot - we'll see how it goes - I'm really hoping I can learn this trick before Boston.

Thanks for reading - John.

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