Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run – 1:06:23
Bolting across the finish line
Sorry, a little late with this report… I took down another PR at the 2010 Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run back on April 11. My finish time was 1:06:23. My previous 10-mile PR was 1:16:47 back in 2007. I knew I would crush it!
PRE-RACE
Not much to say here. Just my standard drill of getting up very early (about 3 hours prior to race time). I like to get to an event early to avoid problems. Parking in D.C. is always an issue, especially with a big event going on. I got there plenty early to secure my spot not too far from the Washington Monument, which was the start/finish area. Most runners probably took the Metro, but I had to immediately leave after the race for a family event. Being able to hop in my car shortly after the finish would save a huge amount of commute time.
Of course, I hit the porta-potties about a 1/2 dozen times before the start. It’s not that I get nervous about the miles. It’s that I get nervous about being at the start line and having “to go”.
When us runners registered for the event, we entered an expected finish time. I can’t remember what I predicted, but I’m sure it was sub-70 and maybe even sub-67. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good enough to position me in the first wave with the gold bibbers. I was in the second wave, wearing a red bib. That was fine. We had D-tag timing devices on our shoes. And, it was wave starts and not just one big sluggish one.
RACE
It’s really neat to be toeing the line of a wave start. I wouldn’t have been able to do that, up next to the Africans who lined the front of the first wave. After about a 2.5 min. wait, our wave was set off.
I thought it would take awhile before I met up with anyone in the first wave. To my surprise, I was passing a bunch by the 1 mile marker. My Mile 1 split was 6:24, which was faster than I had wanted to go. I had dreamed of an easy 6:5* start, easing down to 6:4*, and then 6:3* and faster. But, the first mile had a lot of downhill to it, so the speed just felt natural. Still, I couldn’t understand this crowd of runners I ran up against. I immediately thought that the 5k race somehow merged into the 10M course and would soon merge back out. Otherwise, these people belonged in a wave far back behind me. The shape of these runners was a dead give away to that fact. I later figured out that they weren’t part of the 5k, as it didn’t start until later. These runners must’ve had no clue what their expected time would be. And, I assumed that they just entered “1:00:00″ (1 hour) when asked that question on the registration form. That kind of sucked for me. I had to pass a ton of folks on the outside of turns and others who were running side-by-side with their iPods muting my approaching steps. Not fun!
Once I got past the initial congestion, I was able to get in a better groove, though still a fast one. Miles 2-6 showed splits of 6:39, 6:30, 6:22, 6:34, and 6:31. I was feeling great the whole way too.
Around the 6.5 mile mark, I heard “It’s Andy O!”. Here it was Brodie W, one of my buddies from DailyMile. We did a quick hand slap/shake and chatted a little bit. He took off. And later, I caught up just in time for us to be caught in a race pic together. Click here to see the pic. That was cool.
Mile 7 did turn out to be my slowest split in 6:49. I was a little bummed about that, but I quickly got back into a better groove. I guess I can’t chat and run at the same time. 
Miles 8, 9, and 10 were done in 6:41, 6:35, and 6:24, respectively. I also had another 0.15 miles recorded, as I guess my weaving and passing on the outsides added some length. Oh well, I’m fine with my time.
POST-RACE
I went through the food line, then straight to my car. End of story. Just a 10 minute PR. On to whatever was next in the day…
