A Few More 'Get In Gear 10K' Post-Race Notes

Here are 8 final bits of info from the Get in Gear 10K from last weekend:

• I ran some crappy tangents accidentally in the first 0.75 miles or so. There were cones in the middle of the road, so I tried to stay to the right of them on the way out. Then it got crowded, and people around me started using the whole road. I did that for a bit, and then felt like I was cutting the course, so I went back to the right side of the cones. Before the first mile marker, I realized that the cones were there for the OUT-AND-BACK 5K and NOT for our 10K that didn't come back this way! (Our course was a loop.) I didn't need to be staying to the right of the cones! Sure enough, my Garmin went off well before the first mile marker. I had 6.25 instead of 6.21 miles for the race, and the majority of that 0.04 difference came from the first mile. D'oh.

• There were 94 men in my age group! There were only 671 total men in the 10K, so that means approximately 1 out of every 7 male finishers was in the 5-year range of 40-44 years old. That's wild to me! I was OK with 6th out of 94 in my age group. I was 5th in my age group last year (and raced a WHOLE lot better this year), but there were only 54 in my age group last year.

• I didn't finish that close to anyone else in my age group... meaning I don't have to feel bad about if I could have kicked a BIT harder. 5th in my age group (also named Steven) was 30 secs in front of me, and 3rd and 4th have the EXACT same time which makes me feel bad for 4th barely missing a podium spot! (They both had 36:27, or 46 sec faster than me.)

• Speaking of people finishing around me, I NEARLY caught Gracia who I caught a month earlier before the finish of the Hot Dash 5K. I'm better at shorter distances, so I figured I wouldn't see her all day. But she was 75th overall in 36:55, and I was 0:18 behind her in 76th overall in 37:13. I never actually saw her until we had both finished, but apparently after I passed Emma on the bridge with a half mile left, Gracia would have been the next person (way off) in front of me.

• I still can't stress enough how happy I was with the fast second half of this race! I've thought about it a lot, and I could have maybe taken 0:10 off my slow mile 3 and then given just a few of those seconds back in the last half of the race (and still be maybe 4-6 sec faster overall), but I don't even know if that would have been possible - I was running so fast in the last half partially because I was happy I was putting down such fast splits. Last year at this race, I had ONE mile under 6:00 and THREE half-mile splits under 3:00 (none back-to-back). This year at this race, I had FOUR miles under 6:00 (mile 2, and then the final 3 straight miles), and then SEVEN half-mile splits under 3:00 (2 in the front half and then FIVE STRAIGHT to end the race). My even 5K splits last year of 18:58 and 18:58 felt SO MUCH WORSE than this year's negative split of 19:02 and 18:11.

• We had a quick team meet-up post race. Most of us that raced went to G and M's house for some wine and donuts. Many of the younger parents commented that my boys (the oldest kids there) played really well with the 3 younger kids (aged 1, 2, and 4):

Team socializing!

• Henry beat one of his classmates by about a minute! I think his classmate could have actually beat Henry in their race, but he was hanging with his older brother for a while who was having a rough race. He dumped his brother after a bit and negative split the race, finishing within a minute of Henry. Here they are post-race:

Nice job fellas!


The funny thing was that P and Henry served at mass together later that night!


Henry and I out for noodles after mass!

• And finally, the boys want to get another 5K on the agenda, so therefore I did a longer-than-normal run on Monday. Let me explain. After the Hot Dash 5K about 6 weeks ago, I ran a shorter and easier 8.5 miles for my long run (even on the treadmill to be "softer") 2 days after that race. But being the boys had a great time running their 5K while I did the 10K, they are looking at running the Brian Kraft 5K with me in about 4 weeks. And being we started talking about that RIGHT after the race on Saturday, it made me want to go out for a BIT farther and harder of a run for my "shorter" long run 2 days after my race. So I went out for 10 miles on Monday with 6 slightly faster miles in the middle. (Usually, I'm doing 11-12 miles with 6 faster miles in the middle, but I didn't want to be TOTALLY stupid.) Instead of faster miles around 6:10-6:20 pace, I ended up doing them a BIT easier at 6:27 pace, and I was FINE with that:

Some "faster" (FAR from "all out") miles in the middle.

In case you missed it, here's my Get in Gear 10K race report, and here are my boys running the GIG 5K at the same time.