2025 TC 10 Mile RACE REPORT!

I prepped a few days before the race with a haircut. The stylist at Great Clips promised me that the fresh cut would take 60 seconds off my time. So I went home and trimmed other hair. OTHER hair.

OTHER.

HAIR.

I was as ready as I could be. (And I wasn't shaved clean. Just aggressively trimmed.)

My boys and their cousins ran the 5K the day before the 10 Mile, and even though it was a day with record-breaking heat, the 2 youngest dressed up like a taco and a pickle:

In my pre-race post, I noted that my goal was to finish around 1:01:30. At times, I thought that was IMPOSSIBLE as training hasn't felt great all summer, I wasn't hitting my splits in my hard runs, and the forecast said it was going to be hot and windy (15 mph wind in our face for the first 5 miles). At other times, I thought I could run a low 61 minute 10 mile EASILY as I still did a lot of the hard workouts that I did for last year's 59:23 and just fell a few seconds short on most of those, so that should mean I can still lay down a decent time - just not close to sub-60 like last year. Right? I dunno. With the weird training and warm weather, I really didn't know what to expect. I told my brother-in-law the day before that I could see myself getting to mile 6 and being like "Ehh... this hurts too much... I'm just going to back off and not die."

We'll see how this goes...

Traditional pre-race photo at home.


Steph, Sarah, and I on the light rail to the race.
Steph and I were 10-milers, and my wife was continuing her marathon streak!


At the race, heading off to our corrals.


Sarah found me one last time about 10 mins pre-race.

I lined up WAY FARTHER BACK than I usually do. I felt like I was 2x farther back than I usually am. Again, with the goal of not going out too hard and being a bit unsure of my fitness! I got a selfie with Meg from my team, and chatted with Evan.

"RUNNERS TO YOUR MARKS.... **AIRHORN NOISES**....."

I saw my wife after a few blocks:

Close-up.


Awkward wave.

I took off and passed a LOT of people in the first few blocks. My first half-mile split was 3:00... I had no specific "starting" goals, but that seemed like a good opener.

• MILE 1: 5:58.5 (3:00 and 2:58)

I saw 1 bald eagle last year, but there were TWO soaring this year along the river! And the sky was pink and orange as the sun started to rise:

Pic from Steph lined up in corral D after me.

My first half mile of mile 2 was also faster (at 2:59), and I told myself to make this next half mile over 3:00. But I failed:

• MILE 2: 5:58.5 (2:59 and 2:59)

I KNEW I was going to bleed some time up this big hill. Someone behind me said "Well, that was the last downhill until the Cathedral!" They weren't wrong:

Elevation chart. We had just passed mile 2. The Cathedral is at mile 9.5.

They also knew Doron Clark who was running just in front of me. They teased and commented about "old guy Doron up there," and I teased back saying "Hey! I'm in his age group too!" We all laughed. Then Doron reminded me he was 47 and I was only 44, so I guess next year we'll be in the same age group again. I'm usually (NEVER) as fast as Doron, but he's taken on a few more roles and must not be training has hard or as much lately.

I let that pack of 3 (1 guy and 2 women) who were teasing Doron pass me up that hill. I think 6 people passed me and I only passed 1 person, but I was trying to restrain myself. And it showed in my splits:

• MILE 3: 6:26.3 (3:09 and 3:16)

I was now on my training grounds. It was flat, but we were feeling the strong wind in our face at a few points. (And the heat was getting to some people as someone "pulled over" around mile 3.5 to barf. And then they started running right behind me and had a deep bubbly burp, so I kicked it up a notch to get away from THAT.) My 4th mile on those flats was great:

• MILE 4: 6:04.2 (3:00 and 3:03)

But my 5th mile was started to show some issues. I had been getting a sip of water at every stop, but also dumping more water on my head to try to stay cool. I was starting to get WARM.

• MILE 5: 6:20.0 (3:10 and 3:09)

• EXTRA SPLIT TO THE MILE 5 MARKER: 0:10

• 30:57 through the half-way point

So that's RIGHT where I wanted to be at the half-way point! I stated that just under 31 would be good, and then I have a shot at my sub-62 goal, as I nearly always negative split this race!!

I ran up that nasty hill, and then spotted my 3-year-old neighbor out with her family to cheer. I use part of their backyard as my veggie garden, and my only "rent" is keeping her stocked with cherry tomaotes. Here's the haul from the day before, and over half of the small red cherry tomatoes, all of the yellow pear cherry tomatoes, and a handful of the purple tomatoes on the left (my favs) went to her:

8 varieties of tomatoes!

Now we were on the "false flat" (uphill) for a few miles. Check the elevation chart above: basically mile 4, 5, 6, and 7 are all uphill and it's miles 6 and 7 that are the false flat. It SUCKS. So mile 6 was slow:

• MILE 6: 6:24.0 (3:11 and 3:12)

I was pretty sure I'd be missing my sub-62 min goal. I couldn't get these half-mile splits to come down close to 3:00 flat, and all of these splits in the 3:TEENS were not helping. I had a "check-in" at mile 7 where I hoped to be at 43:30, and then I could run 6:10s and hit 62 mins overall. But I hit mile 7 around 43:50. So I'd have to run 6:00 FLAT for the last 3 miles to finish at 1:01:50. I was 95% sure that wasn't going to happen.

• MILE 7: 6:26.6 (3:12 and 3:14). "Yikes. Slow splits. Time to see if I have any extra in the tank!"

Some random woman was smiling and taking photos of me, and then later I learned it was a co-worker of my wife who recognized me but had never met me. So she sent my wife this photo:

Coming up to Lexington around mile 7.5.

I had a bit of a surge to start mile 8 with a 3:04 half-mile split! But then slowed up a bit with a 3:08 coming to the mile marker:

• MILE 8: 6:13.0 (3:04 and 3:08)

The rest of the race was super sporadic. I'd take off and run a few good strides for a while, sometimes passing a pack of a few runners in front of me. But then I'd die and ease up and they'd pass me back a few seconds later. I was holding on. I was SO HAPPY to climb the last real hill up to the mile 9 marker, and I was still ready to go hard. I glanced at my overall time and saw that I'd need to run a 5:30 final mile (that IS faster and downhill) to be able to hit my sub-62 goal. I looked very improbable, but I was still trying!! I was also watching Doron pull farther and farther away.

Lots of quick changes in color as I tried to move faster and would fail.
(This is the last 4 miles or so of the race.)

• MILE 9: 6:18.9 (3:07 and 3:11)

Pain. Just pain.

I ran one of my slower final miles ever at the TC 10 Mile - I've only had 1 or 2 years with a slower final mile split.

• MILE 10: 5:50.5 (3:03 and 2:47)

Some cheers and a sweet pic from bro-in-law Jon!


Close-up. Thanks Jon!!

OFFICIAL RESULTS:

Steve Stenzel, M, 44, St. Paul

1:02:18
6:14 pace

8 out of 604 in the M 40-44 age group
108 of ot 9004 non-professional runners
162 out of 9058 overall

Started: 268th place, 24th in AG
5K: 173rd place, 12th in AG, 6:10 pace
Mile 8.64: 160th place, 8th in AG, 6:20 pace
Finish: 162nd place, 8th in AG, 6:01 pace

Unofficially: 30:57 first half, 31:21 second half

[Garmin: 10.04 miles, 1:02:18, 6:12 pace]

SEVEN POST-RACE NOTES:

• The heat and wind weren't killer! It could have been a lot worse. Yes, I got hot on Summit, but it wasn't horrible. And the wind in our face along River Road was only noticeable in spots. On Summit, it was from the right, and I tried to tuck in behind people at times to have others help break it.

• I didn't feel any effects from the duathlon a week before. I really took it easy the 3 days pre-race, and I have no excuse of tired legs from the Fall Classic Duathlon 7 days prior. So being a bit slower than I wanted to be was all on me! No excuse.

• There's no "here's how many people you passed and how many that passed you between different timing mats" stat for this race. I'd be SOOO curious to see that! They have overall place at the timing mats as you can see above in the "official results" section, but not how you GOT to the place (passing and being passed). So I passed nearly 100 people in the first 5K (and the MAJORITY of that would have been in the first half mile). Then I only passed 13 more people from mile 3.1 through mile 8.64 (that's 4.5 miles!). And then I actually gave up 2 spots overall to the finish, even though my pace was fastest BY FAR in that final split (6:10 start to 5K, 6:20 5K to mile 8.6, and 6:01 mile 8.6 to finish).

• Post-race, everyone was talking about being warm and slow. Again, it wasn't HORRIBLE. But I overheard 2 different people say something like "Even with that fast final mile... I totally positive split that race!" And I heard another person talking about getting a little warm and having their heart rate running too high.

• I'm SOOO grateful that the "good weather" was last year when I was really well trained! It would have been a bummer to be ready to race SUPER WELL this year on a warm day. Last year, I posted sub-60 and was THRILLED from mile 7 on because I was watching time come off my finish time. This year, I was dying as I was watching time being added with every split. What a different race!

• My "exercise load" for the race is tied with my lifetime highest! Most of my long hard runs have a load of upper 200s to lower 300s. I had a hot long run last summer with a load of 416. And I had a triathlon run last year that had load of 458 which has remained my highest ever. Well this hard, warm 10 miler tied that highest ever at 458:

WORKING HARD!

• Some Garmin stats:

Pace: slow up the hill at mile 2.5, then just kind of bouncing around.


Heart rate: high.


Heart rate.

I took the light rail home, and shortly after getting home, Jon sent me a pic of Steph finishing her first 10 Mile in 6 years! Nice job Steph!!

Great finish Steph!

I saw that I sweated so much that my number was gumming / balling up on the back:

Gross.

Speaking of gross, I still had a blood blister on my 2nd toe from a long hot run in mid-Sept, but I developed another one on my middle toe from this race:

Gross. Oww. Looks like some minor home surgery will be in my future.

Then the boys and I biked down to cheer on Sarah at 2 spots in the marathon. I brought some Cherry Coke Zero and she was grateful:

Nice job on anther TC Marathon finish cutie!!


It POURED a few times after she got done! Yikes!

Back with a few more pics from my boys' race the day before and a few from my wife's marathon too! (And some race pics from the Fall Classic Duathlon too!) Now, time to let my legs heal up a bit!