I ran the Passavant Powerade 10k in Jacksonville yesterday. It was a fairly nice day with a race time temp in the mid 60s, and a nice breeze out of the S-SW around 5mph. The only negative was the high humidity but even that wasn't too bad. I ran a mile around my subdivision before driving to the race and after registering I did another mile's worth of jogging and strides. I lined up next to my old pal Matt and my new pals Martha and Tim and we were off. Matt and Tim took off ahead and I concentrated on keeping Martha in sight as I attempted to ease into my race.
I felt pretty stiff the first mile and a little out of sorts but I hit the mile in 6:59.74, right about where I wanted to be. I had planned on getting out my first two miles in 6:55 to 7:05 pace and picking it up after that. I kept my sights on Martha and Jim, the club president, and made myself focus on keeping my arms and shoulders relaxed. I hoped that if I could get my upper body to loosen up my legs would follow. As the course split to the right for the 10k race I came upon David and passed him. I hit the two mile mark a second behind Martha in 14:06.73 having run my second mile in 7:06.99. I think the slower second mile was due to not charging a hill leading to the 2 mile mark. Martha and I passed Nyle, who had slowed to a walk, and we headed out to the countryside and our turnaround point. I took a little water at the water stop, just enough to swallow a sip and rinse my mouth, and surged on the downhill as I was starting to loosen up at that point. I passed Martha and started focusing on the group ahead of us and as I approached the turnaround I heard the pitter-patter of little feet as Martha caught back up to me. At the turnaround I was in 21st place overall and was the 20th male. I hit the three mile mark in 20:59.39 with a 6:52.66 mile split and surged after Martha said "Darn that Joy!" I hit 5k in 21:40 and started gaining on a guy ahead of me.
I hit mile 4 in 27:42.89 after having run a 6:43.50 mile. Right as I hit the 4 mile mark I heard the pitter-patter of feet again but instead of Martha coming back up on me it was Nyle. He paused for a step or two as he passed me and then must have thought better of it because he dropped me like a bad habit. I was within a second or two of the guy I'd been chasing and he went with Nyle and extended his lead back to about five seconds. As we passed the 4 mile mark the timer yelled to us that it was all downhill from there and he was mostly correct. I am a pretty decent downhill runner and I used the momentum to power my way to a 6:40.76 mile split and passed five in 34:23.69. I continued to narrow the gap between the loosely strung out group ahead of me and as I approached the 6 mile mark I was within two seconds of the guy I'd been chasing, five of the guy ahead of him and close to 15 behind Jim. Nyle was long gone at that point.
As I turned the corner to head into the last 400 meter straightaway to the finish chute I passed my target for the previous three miles and passed through 6 in 40:59.74 with a 6:36.09 split. I had started my sprint with the intention of making up that 10-15 seconds on Jim and I almost pulled it off until I ran out of gas the last 50 meters or so and finished about five seconds back. I ran the last .2 miles in 1:16.06 and crossed the line in 42:15.80, a post-drinking age personal best by 1:50.
Alas, due to a major gaffe on the part of the race organizers, everyone who registered for the 10k the day of the race was put in the 5k results instead of the 10k. This wasn't discovered until they announced the overall winner of the women's race as Martha, who finished in about 43:20, even though that darn Joy had won with a time of 40:06. It was discovered that the overall male winner wasn't scored correctly and they had to go back to the drawing board to figure the men's results out. I left the awards ceremony in disgust and upon checking the race results at http://www.passavanthospital.com/files/presspdfs/10K%20MENS%20RESULTS.pdf, I discovered that I am not listed among the finishers of the 10k or the 5k. My bib number was 256 and I finished in 18th place behind Jim but I inexplicably morphed into Bob T, age 50. I hope this can be corrected as I am among the leaders in my age group points series race.
On a more positive note, I ran negative splits for the race. I hit my first 5k in 21:40 and ran my last 5k in 20:35. I ran my last five miles in 34:00.00, my last four in 26:53.01, my last three in 20:00.35 and my last two in 13:16.85. I think I am capable of breaking 41 minutes if I train well and run smart at Abe's Amble in August. I know that turns into about a 15 second per mile drop on a tougher course but I know that I underachieved at last year's Abe's by at least 35 seconds, if not a full minute.
I covered 26.5 miles this week to bring my total for the year to 580.75. This coming week I am going to skip one of my quality workouts to focus more on injury prevention. I have a rough month ahead with two more races and with my knees feeling slightly gimpy I want to focus on strengthening them to head off any injury.
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5 comments:
I got an e-mail from the race director with updated results and I did indeed get 18th place behind Jim Cinotto. Unfortunately I also had 15 seconds added to my time, so my official time is 42:30.6.
Other comments on the Half-Wits blog say that other people have noticed that the times on their watched and their times on the official results are differing 20-30 seconds. I've seen at least one person say they won't be running the Passavant Powerade 5k or 10k next year.
As for me, if I have the weekend off I will more than likely make the drive out to Jacksonville. The course is fast, the refreshments aren't bad and the company is great. Mistakes happen. This was a pretty HUGE one but when I screw up I also tend to screw up IMPRESSIVELY.
If anyone involved with the Passavant Powerade 10k reads this, I will be there next year, the only caveat being whether or not I have that weekend off.
Great race, Aaron. I'm very impressed with your splits. You built through the early miles to an impressive performance. Good work.
As for the race gaffe, I think that there are forgiveable sins and unforgiveable sins in putting on races. I assume that a mistake like this one was the fault of a well-meaning volunteer, who could've been doing better things with his/her time on a Saturday morning than helping with a race. I tend to pretty forgiving about those types of errors, provided that the race director exhibits an adequate sense of remorse.
Good luck with your summer racing. All indications suggest that you are poised for a major leap forward this year.
Thanks for the comliments Nate. I am happy with my race. When I go with my plan I usually do well but sometimes I get caught up in the excitement and my plan goes to hell.
I'm sure it was just a confused volunteer but it still made alot of people mad. The female 10k champ was a little confused as was my friend Martha. Martha didn't want to win the race based on an error.
Make no mistake, I'd be mad too. A few years ago, I ran a race where a similar sort of mistake occurred. I was upset by it but not to the point where I would've sworn off the race- what made me swear off the race was the jerk of a race director. In that situation, you can either become apologetic or defensive/aggressive. Do the latter, and I'm pretty much done with your events.
In this case, I'm at least impressed that the RD tried to get corrected results out there so soon after the race.
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