Pike's Peek 10K

Every running program has a graduation. A race where you get to see the progress you've made and the product of all that hard work and dedication over the last few months. For FTM, graduation was the Marine Corps Marathon. Hai and I opted for an early graduation with the Baltimore Marathon, where we exceled, and then used MCM as a celebratory race for our success. For SDP, graduation was the Pike's Peek 10K. This race also bears the weight of being what they use to assign you to a pace group for FTM. There's a lot riding on this little race, which made me all the more excited about it before I took those 2.5 weeks off leading up to it.

All winter long, we trained (even with all the snow!). Track on Tuesdays and long runs on Saturdays. Those track workouts were rough, but I always went home feeling great knowing that I had put in a lot of hard work. By the end of February, I was already beginning to see how much I had benefited from this program. I was running more comfortably at faster paces and killed my previous PR's by over 5 minutes at the RRCA 10 Mile Challenge and National Marathon with not as much effort as I would've expected to make those times.

Then came April and traveling sidetracked my running. I managed two runs total in the 2.5 weeks leading up to Pike's Peek and made it back from Cali the night before the race. Being on Pacific Time was not very fun at all, especially considering that I was sleeping in til 8-9 am instead of getting up at my usual 5 am over there. I spent most of the night away counting down the hours I had left til I had to get up.

The weather was cold, rainy, and humid that morning. Although most considered this weather ideal as opposed to hot and sunny, I did not appreciate it as it made me feel groggier than I already was from the lack of sleep. Hai and I got into the 7:00-8:00 min/mile wave start with a couple of other people in our 8:00 min pace group. I tried to follow Coach Tom's advice and start conservatively. Although I thought I was running at a comfortable pace, Hai caught up to me and told me I was doing 7:15 min/mile for mile 1.

It all went downhill after that. The effort and ease of running fast that came to me in February and March as a result of those tough track workouts had escaped from me with that long April hiatus. I struggled through the rest of the race not focusing so much on time as on watching most of my peers from the program pass me.

I learned a very valuable lesson that if you don't keep working at something, you will lose those abilities very quickly. Although I still PRed by almost 4 minutes from last year's race, I guess I was disappointed in my performance because I had been looking forward to this race for so long and know that I could have done a lot better and with less effort had this race taken place before my 2.5 week hiatus. I was one of the slowest in my 8:00 pace group and when we shared our finish times with each other and I told them mine, one of them had a shocked expression on his face and asked "What happened?" I couldn't help but laugh and think "My thoughts, exactly!" Regardless of the circumstances, I am still very proud and thankful for what SDP has brought out in the runner inside me. Hard work DOES pay off! I am excited for what this summer's Experienced Marathoners Program has to offer and hope for some positive results in my fall marathon, Steamtown.