Race Report: Strider's Ten Miler

Jim here. Matt has likely not even begun to write the Saugatuck 10K race report, so maybe this one will hold you people over. And if he doesn't get it done in a week, I'll post my version. So basically, you'll be reading my report in a week.

Anyway, the Strider's Saturday Classic is a ten-mile race held in Grandville, MI by a local shoe store. Actually the race takes place in neighboring Walker, but who really gives a shit. Neither Matt nor myself have run a ten-miler before – we did a half-marathon at the end of last year's race season, but that was mostly run at a slow jog.

We picked the event because it was a week after the 10K, but three weeks before the 25K Riverbank Run, and four weeks before the Rockford Marathon. So the basic idea was to incorporate progressively longer races into the schedule as a means of making sure we were hitting our distance goals. One of the problems we ran into last year was we half-assed our training after finishing the triathlon and woke up one morning to realize that we had a race the next day. Not going to happen this year.

Like so many of these things, the organizers clearly did not subscribe to our lifestyle choices. Neither Matt nor I would ever plan a race that starts at fucking 8am. What kind of stupid shit is that? Who do they expect to show up, eighty-year old bluehairs and NORAD employees? Certainly not drunks or people with lives.

Anyway, to lessen the degree to which morning activity universally sucks, I drove down to the shoe store the day before to pick up our race packets. I figured it might save us fifteen bloodshot minutes in the morning. For the first time in Team Bad Ass race history – and what a storied volume it is – I was assigned a lower race number than Matt. Usually, he gets one number lower than me, or they do it alphabetically, and I still get fucked. But not today, for today I am the cock of the walk!

We're actually getting pretty good at going to sleep at 3:30am and waking up at 7am – I only had to slap Matt in the face twice to get him up. We ate some oatmeal,and hopped in the car. On the way down there Matt ate a banana in the car and upon finishing it, he nonchalantly threw the peel out the window and onto the highway. And after I had just barely finished eating my banana, Matt snatched the peel from my hand and it too went out the window. I think he just enjoys littering; maybe I should start using the window locks.

We got there about 7:30am and it was probably between 35 and 40 degrees outside. We both decided to stick with shorts, albeit with long-sleeve technical t-shirts instead of the short-sleeve jobs. We did our usual Gold Bond and nipple-tape routine and walked over to the start line. There was no individual, chip-timing at this race, just the clock time. I was disappointed at first but it ended up not being an issue because there weren't too many people ahead of us; it probably only cost us maybe 5 seconds or so.

The course was a relatively simple, out-and-back affair with water/Gatorade stations every two miles. Whoever picked the course must have had a Mont Ventoux fetish, because there were some decent hills. Our pace was quicker than I expected it to be, sub-8's the whole race. We need to start focusing on keeping the pace down, and on keeping it constant. Hopefully the upcoming 25K with get us tuned up and thinking about the marathon.

Matt and I stayed relatively close together for most of the race. At about the four-mile mark, I opened up a gap between us while heading down a hill. I thought he was right behind me for the next few miles, but I had actually widened the gap. Apparently I am really fucking fast.

At about mile 6, I crossed paths with Kayla, a TBA supporter and loyal reader of the TBA training blog. I didn't see her wearing the wristband though.

The hills were brutal. Not too long or too steep, but too frequent. Even before the midway point, my calves were aching from the hills.

With about a mile to go I looked at my heart-rate monitor and saw that I was already cooking pretty good, 180bpm, and I wasn't sure if I could kick into overdrive and actually make it to the finish line. But I said, “Fuck it.” and gassed by a couple people in front of me. I beat out this one guy right before entering the chute at the finish line. It was a good thing too, because if that race was ten yards longer, I would have had to walk to the finish.

I ended up clocking 1:17:36, came out to about 7:45/mile. Good enough for 103rd place out of a field of 271 and 14th in my age group out of 23. Not the best, but considering there wasn't a bicycle involved, not too shabby.

I stood there catching my breath waiting for Matt to finish. He crossed the finish line with a look of sheer fatigue on his face, clocking 1:18:58 equating to a 7:54/mile pace. Earning him 116th place overall and 17th in our age group.

I thought for sure that we were going to get smoked in this race, but we managed to maintain our usual, middle-of-the-pack performance. Worth noting is that the winner of the race finished in 54:01. That means that he was running a 5:24/mile pace. I cannot imagine running one mile in 5:24, and here's this asshole running ten in a row.

While this wasn't the longest race we've run (the half-marathon was three miles farther), due to the hills it was probably the hardest. Not to mention the fact that we had a killer pace.

All in all a good day for Team Bad Ass.

Jim out!