Army Ten-Miler: Running in a Sauna

At the start of the Cherry Blossom 10-miler this year, the announcer said, "We have 'no excuses' weather this morning," because it was in the low 40's. At the Army Ten Miler this morning, I was waiting for the announcer to say that we had "excuses" weather because it was so hot, but that never happened!

Needless to say, we approached record heat and humidity this morning here in DC. According to the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang: Dew points are on the rise as a tropical air mass rushes through the region. Temperatures will be quite warm and uncomfortable. . . in the low 70s downtown with comparable dew point values. Warm record lows for Sunday are in jeopardy of being broken.

At several points throughout the week, I debated not racing. I had bailed on the Navy Air-Force half

Army Ten-Miler, Post-race

marathon three weeks prior due to similar weather conditions, and not wanting to subject myself to a death march. I have a history of heat exhaustion and I've found that the heat and humidity seem to impact me more than the typical runner.

I ultimately decided to stick it out and try to make the best of it. I really only had one goal (aside from avoiding heat exhaustion), and that was to run my last mile faster than my first mile. Ideally, I would run negative splits and pass people during the second half. Instead of running by my watch, I would run by feel.  Before the forecast came out, I was thinking that I might be able to manage a 6:50 pace for 10 miles. But with the heat, the race ended up being all about the effort level, and not trying to test my fitness.

I slept particularly well during the week leading up to the race, and I could tell that my body was starting to recover from the past six weeks of hard training. My coach gave me a taper for this race, allowing my legs to regain their pep, and I took full advantage of it. As a result, my mileage for this week was only 52, compared to my typical 65+, but I think it was good for me to have a cutback week in terms of mileage. Knowing that my only goal would be to pace the race for a negative split and run a hard effort, the pressure to PR was non-existent.

Before the Race
My alarm woke me up at 5:30, which is atypical of race morning. Usually I am up in the 4:00 hour on my own because I am so excited about the race. I'll be honest-- I was not excited about racing in 76 degrees, which was the current temperature in DC according to Wunderground.

Greg and I had reserved a parking spot about one mile from the race start. We left the house a little later than we wanted to, and the drive took longer than expected, so we both started to get a little nervous. But thankfully, we found street parking on the way to our reserved garage spot, so we just took it. The "reserved" spot was actually the parking garage of a hotel, and I was worried there wouldn't be availability despite a reservation, due to the hotel being booked for the race. The street parking was free and easy. As we jogged to the start, we passed a hotel and used the bathroom. This was a lifesaver. We were already on the later side of things, and we didn't have time to wait in line for a porta potty.

We figured out our plan for meeting up after the race. Basically he was going to wait for me after the finish line chute and look for me as I walked through. He said that I should do the same for him if I finished first but I told him that was not going to happen. "It could happen," he said. "It is highly unlikely to happen," I replied, as I hadn't beat Greg in a race in over a year. "But if it does, I will look for you to finish."

It wasn't long before we reached the Pentagon, the starting point of the Army Ten Miler. There were 35,000 runners (more than run the Boston Marathon) and the announcer kept mentioning that it was the third largest 10-mile race in the world. We made our way to the first corral and it was packed. It was particularly warm in the corral with all the body heat and sweat radiating from the runners. Even on the hottest summer mornings, it wasn't 76 degrees! A typical summer morning in DC is around 70. This was almost comical.

Miles 1-4
The race started and it was very crowded. I decided that I would go with the flow and not waste energy weaving through people. I didn't have a target pace for the first mile, but my overall sentiment was that I'd be happy to run my goal marathon pace (7:25) for 10 miles in these difficult conditions. I thought that the crowd would thin out after a mile or two, but it didn't. In some cases I found myself behind people going much slower than I wanted to be, so I had no choice but to do some weaving.

Even though the Army Ten Miler has a wave start, with assigned corrals, it is not enforced. I passed quite a few people who probably weren't going any faster than a 10:00 pace.

It started to rain during the third mile and it felt amazing! Unfortunately, it didn't last long and we were back into the sauna by mile 5.

I carried a water bottle with me for these first four miles, and then ditched it. I poured the majority of the water on myself as I ran, and only drank about 25% of it. This was fine, though, because I had hydrated really well on Friday and Saturday, and knew that I wouldn't need to drink a lot during the race itself. In the past, I have had a tendency to drink too much water in warm conditions, and I've learned that I actually don't need to drink a lot during races if I hydrate properly beforehand.

I decided to be very conservative and take these miles easy. Typically when I run a 10-mile race, I feel like I am putting out race effort starting at mile 2. But today, the first four miles felt comfortable-- definitely not race effort. And that was by design.

Mile 1: 7:31
Mile 2: 7:23
Mile 3: 7:25
Mile 4: 7:15

Miles 5-7
Once I had tossed my water bottle, I felt free to up the effort level and start passing people. And I did. Even though there were still loads of people, I noticed that things opened up substantially during the 5th mile, and I was able to pass people without a ton of weaving. I felt strong and my spirits were high. I actually felt much better than I did at the Cherry Blossom earlier in the year, when I felt "off" throughout most of the race.

With six miles left to go, I felt like I still wasn't out of the "danger" zone. I increased the effort, while making sure to save something for the end. I hit the halfway mark in 37:11. Now, I had a goal. I wanted to negative split, which meant sub-1:14:22. This seemed very doable. There was a bit of a hill after the halfway mark, which was tough, but once I got to the top I felt good again and ready to crush it. As I ran through the sixth mile, I remembered last year's race, when I was a spectator cheering for Greg. Even though it was ridiculously hot, I was thankful to be strong and healthy instead of recovering from mono.

Mile 5: 7:15
Mile 6: 7:13
Mile 7: 7:10

Miles 8-10
After mile 7, we turned a corner and started running on a bridge. The bridge would span 2 miles and I was told it was the most difficult portion of the race. I had only run the Army Ten Miler once before,
and it was seven years ago, so I didn't have a great memory of the course. As I made the turn onto the bridge, I was shocked to see Greg not that far ahead. This came as a huge surprise. I expected him to be at least two minutes ahead of me. And I was catching up to him!

Everyone was suffering. I'm leading the guys.

After a few minutes, I reached him and I said something to the effect of "It was unlikely." He let me know that his Garmin had stopped working, so he didn't know what pace he was running. He gave me a few words of encouragement but after about a minute I took off ahead. Initially I thought that something might have been wrong with him for me to have caught up, but he seemed fine physically and was able to talk to me.

The fact that I had passed Greg was a huge mental boost. Greg's 10-mile PR is 1:07! And he just ran a 1:32 half marathon in the heat three weeks prior. And then the passing continued. I passed, and passed, and passed! I thought about the RunPix that races sometimes offer that show you how many people you passed and how many people passed you during the second half of the race. Cherry Blossom had those, and I hoped that this race would too. I was a passing machine!

The bridge was tough, but I felt great. I was having fun, enjoying the race atmosphere, and feeling giddy that I was actually negative splitting a 10-miler in 76 degrees. And finally I was able to put out true race effort without worrying about bonking. With just three miles left to go and feeling great, I knew I was in the clear.

Mile 8: 7:06
Mile 9: 7:08
Mile 10: 6:53
Last 0.13: 6:20 pace

The finish
I crossed the finish line feeling like a million dollars and the announcer called out my name. And I didn't double over with my hands on my knees like I typically do. I felt so good! I couldn't believe I

Photo by Cheryl Young

ran a 6:53 final mile when it was 76 degrees and humid. And I didn't have to kill myself to do it. No black spots. No dehydration. No dizziness.

Greg appeared shortly after, which was a relief. After exchanging race stories, we did a cool down jog back to the car. A few hours later I heard that they re-routed the course at some point after we finished due to the adverse weather conditions. Apparently there were quite a few runners collapsing. As mentioned above, this was record-breaking heat and humidity.

I don't have my official time yet, and because they downgraded this to a "recreational run" for the runners who finished after they re-routed the course, none of the results will be posted until tomorrow. I'll come back and update with my official time tomorrow. My watch said 1:13:10. I'm less curious about my time than how I ranked in my age group. This may be the first hot race where I was actually more competitive instead of less competitive.

Edited to add:
My official time is 1:13:08. I placed 23 out of 2,209 in my age group (35-39) which puts me in the top 1.0%. I was also the 96th female finisher out of over 11,000.

Final Thoughts
Since both of my tune-up races were in abnormally hot weather, I figured that the weather gods really wanted me to run a hot race. And if I didn't pay my dues now, I would have to on marathon day. So hopefully I have satisfied the requirement for a long hot race and it will be cold and overcast in Indianapolis in four weeks. I'm definitely glad I didn't bail on this race. Here are my final thoughts.

• I once again learned that having a great race isn't always about setting a PR. It's truly about the process.
• I didn't feel like I was running at true race effort until the last three miles, so I probably could have run an overall faster time. But I'm totally okay with that. I was purposely conservative, and I
  
  did what I set out to do.
• Based on how an average "Garmin pace" of 7:13 felt in crappy conditions, I think a "Garmin pace" of 7:25 for the marathon is realistic. My coach even thinks it will feel easy!  
• This was an excellent workout and because I ran it on the conservative side, I'll be ready to jump back into marathon training next week.
• I was only 15 seconds per mile slower than Cherry Blossom from this past spring, and that race was in the low 40s. 
• My Achilles' were 100% pain-free during the run, but upon getting out of the car after the ride home, they had really stiffened up and were painful for the first few minutes of walking. They are doing better now.
• In 2010, I ran this race in 1:17:54, so I set a huge course PR this morning!
• I could complain about how I am in PR shape and would have set a massive 10-mile PR, but I'm not going to. The 10-mile PR will come eventually; this race had its own rewards. 

I wore the Adidas Tempo for the first time in a race, and I was very pleased with how they felt. They are a great replacement for the Mizuno Wave Elixir and Mizuno Wave Sayonara. 

I'm looking forward to recovering from this race, having two more hard weeks of training, and then tapering for Indianapolis Monumental. 

"Everyone else is. . ."

One of the topics that I cover in depth in my book is making comparisons to other people. Little good

comes of comparing yourself to other people, and yet, it's part of human nature to do so. We all want to know how we stack up, and we tend to use other people to gage our own successes. With the rise of social media over the past 10 years, it's almost impossible to avoid these comparisons. There have been many articles written about how Facebook can cause depression-- when everyone else seems to have things that you don't.

When it comes to running, falling into the comparison trap is all too easy. We talk about our paces, the length of our runs, how many miles we trained, etc. There are so many numbers and data points that comparison just feels natural. If you're a perfectionist, then you'll likely look to find fault with your own running (potentially without realizing it) and noticing how someone else raced or trained compared to you just feeds into this counterproductive mindset.

It's difficult to not make these comparisons, especially if you are active on social media and have friends who run. My best advice for not doing it is to simply realize that focusing on other people will not help you with your own running. It could actually hurt your running if it results in you feeling like you have to run as fast as someone else. Then, you'll be putting additional pressure on yourself, which is not conducive to a strong performance. The best way to be successful is to simply focus on yourself and your own progress, independent of what others are doing.

Why am I talking about this now? At the Army Ten-miler last weekend, where I went to cheer on Greg and my friends, I found it difficult to not fall into the comparison trap: "Everyone else is running fast times and I can't even run 10 miles right now." When I registered for this race last spring, my goal was to run it at a sub-7:00 pace. But if you've been following this blog, you know that I spent the entire summer being sick and unable to train. Everyone who I went out to cheer for ran really well, and Greg broke 70 minutes with an average pace of 6:58. 

I had a great spectating spot to snap a photo of Greg.

My focus for the entire day was supporting Greg and my friends, but as the day progressed, I started to feel a sense of loss. I was perfectly fine the day before the race when we picked up Greg's packet, and even during the race when I was watching all the runners go by. But once the race was over and everyone started talking about their races, I felt a little sad. I didn't want to rain on anyone's parade so I did a good job of ignoring my feelings and focusing on being there for my friends. And yet, I still had a nagging feeling that I had missed out.

Later that evening, after all the celebrations were done, I started to reflect on my feelings. I was sad. It was hard to see everyone else have a great race when I was unable to run, and wouldn't be able to run the Army Ten-miler for another year. I then began to judge myself for falling into the comparison trap. For allowing other people's accomplishments to diminish my own. After all, I was recovering well, feeling healthy, and I had just run five miles the day before. So why was I back to my old ways of comparing myself to other people?

But then I realized something. I actually had not fallen into the comparison trap. Even though watching other people run this race really well (especially Greg, who ran the time that I had hoped to run) made me feel sad about my situation, I wasn't really comparing myself to them. Instead, I felt lonely. Lonely because everyone else was talking about their races, and I didn't have a story to share. Lonely because everyone else was talking about the upcoming Indianapolis marathon, which I wouldn't be running. Lonely because I was surrounded by my running friends and my husband, but not having a shared experience.

Countless runners have reached out to me to thank me for writing my book. Often, they tell me that they felt like they were reading their own story, and it was good to know that someone else out there experienced the same thing. It seems that readers are connecting with the book on an emotional level because it makes them feel less "lonely" for having feeling of disappointment, loss, injustice, and a slew of other negative emotions. They've thanked me for being so open and honest about my feelings. In a world dominated by social media where people typically only talk about their successes, it can feel lonely if you perceive yourself to be the only person who didn't set a PR or who didn't have a good race.

If you're trying to work on your mental toughness by steering yourself away from making comparisons to other people, then it's good to be aware of this loneliness component. You can be doing a great job of not comparing yourself to other people while still feeling disappointed, sad, or lonely about your own situation. It's important to separate the two. In my case, I have to be realistic in knowing that I am going to be a little sad about missing out on these fall races. It's harder to ignore those feelings when I'm actually attending the races and supporting my friends and my husband. But, overall, I'm in a great spot mentally and I am truly happy to see other people succeed. Especially Greg, who I have been coaching. The goal with mental toughness isn't to never feel sad or upset. The goal is to not dwell on those feelings and have them interfere with your overall state of being.

So when you feel like everyone else is. . . then, ask yourself if you are comparing yourself and your worth to those people (the comparison trap) or if you are lonely because you feel like you are the only one who feels a certain way. If you are lonely, then remember that you're actually not alone and that many other runners get down about their running from time to time. They just don't post about it on Facebook, usually, or even talk about it.

10 for the Army

It's 3:39a.m., and I can't sleep. I finally gave up on it and thought perhaps it was because I didn't write my Army 10-miler blog yesterday. Until I write a blog about a race, I don't feel proper closure. So here I am in a hotel room in Washington, D.C., at 3:39a.m. writing a blog on my laptop. I didn't write the blog yesterday because I was so busy with a work event that my company is hosting in D.C. More on that in a bit. . .

Yesterday, I ran my first Army Ten-Miler. This race accepts 30,000 registrants and is the largest 10-mile race in the country. I had never run it before because I had heard it was ridiculously crowded and that the crowds prevented you from running your best. Dealing with the metro system and the crowding didn't sound at all appealing, especially since I had a panic attack after the Marine Corps Marathon in 2006 due to crowding. But my husband really wanted to run this race, so I registered too. I registered part of team Pacers Ambassadors, and it would be my first time racing as part of a team. My husband was on the Lockheed Martin team (they actually had about 20 or so teams).

Before the Race
The day before the race, my husband and I spent several hours moving and unpacking boxes for my work conference. After getting our race packet, we made our way to the conference hotel in Georgetown where we met up with a few other employees to unload a truck full of boxes. I felt guilty that my husband was doing manual labor for my company the day before a race, but he was more than happy to help out.

Given the fact that I had been stressing about the conference all week and not sleeping well, and that the day before was spent on my feet moving and unpacking, I didn't expect a fantastic race. The weather forecast was for partly sunny and 58, which to me is too warm to run at my peak anyway. It's by no means disastrous, but for Oct. 24 in Washington D.C., at 8:00a.m., I expected temperatures in the mid to upper 40's-- that's what we had been having the past two weeks. I decided I would just go out there and try my best, despite the weather being a little warm and despite how tired and stressed I had been all week.

The Start
On Sunday morning, we took the metro from our hotel to the race. There were swarms of people. We knew we needed to be in our corral by 7:50, so we headed over there at 7:30. It wasn't a far walk, but due to the immense amount of people, it took almost the full 20 minutes to get to our spot. My husband and I were both in the Green Corral, which was the first corral behind the elites. We looked behind us and it was amazing to see the sea of people. I was amazing at how they didn't at all enforcing the corral system. Each year they say they are going to be strict about not letting people into corrals if they didn't have the proper wave, but there was absolutely no enforcement. There was also no enforcement of the headphones policy. I saw quite a few people wearing them. I stopped racing in headphones over a year ago, so this didn't affect me, but I know a lot of people really like wearing them in races.

My husband wanted to be toward the front of the corral and I wanted to be closer to the back of it. We ended up a lot closer to the front and I had a feeling I was going to be run over by faster runners. This was not the case, though, because the first half of my first mile was a lot slower than goal pace. Instead of a horn or a gun, they fired a cannon and we were off.

Miles 1-3
As I said earlier, I got a slow start due to crowding. I ran the second half of the first mile a lot faster than goal pace to make up for the first half. As for "goal pace" I was targeting a 7:40. I wanted to run the tangents, but it was impossible to see where they were given all of the people in front of me. The first few miles felt like a tempo run, and so I knew I was pacing myself correctly. The big question was weather or not I'd be able to hang on at at the end, as the sun got higher in the sky and the temperatures rapidly rose into the low 60's.

Mile 1: 7:41
Mile 2: 7:34
Mile 3: 7:40

Miles 4-7
These miles seemed to go quickly. I took a Honey Gel at mile 4.5, which I thought would be good timing. I had been carrying a small bottle of water with me, which I tossed right before taking my honey. Afterwards, I only stopped at one water station at around mile 8. This part of the course is mainly flat, but it did seem like mile 7 was an incline downhill, which we would turn around and run back up during mile 8.

Mile 4: 7:38
Mile 5: 7:43
Mile 6: 7:38
Mile 7: 7:42

Miles 8-10
I knew I was on track for meeting my goal of 7:40, but I also knew that the hardest part of the course was the rolling hills at the end. Mile 8 was my slowest mile. It was up an incline, and there wasn't much downhill to make up for it. I wanted to keep a solid pace, but I also didn't want to burn myself out before the last two miles. I logged a 7:54 mile, which I knew would put me off target, but I figured I'd try to really stay strong for the last two. It was getting warmer and the course was getting hillier. I tried to maintain my strong effort level, but my pace slowed a little bit.

Mile 8: 7:54
Mile 9: 7:46
Mile 10: 7:53

The Finish
According to my Garmin, I ran 10.11 miles. So even though my average pace was reading 7:42 by the end, I knew that my official pace would be slower. After my Garmin beeped for mile 10, there was still 0.11 to go and I sprinted as fast as I could. I saw that I was at risk for not even being in the 1:17:xx range so I gave it everything I had. The last 0.11 was a pace of 6:18. Wow! Just goes to show what a little adrenaline can do late in the game! I was excited that they called out my name and my city as I crossed the finish line. It was quite the high, considering the thousands of people there cheering.


My official time was 1:17:54
I placed 104 out of 2010 in my age group, finishing ahead of 95% of them.
I placed 441 out of 9481 women, finishing ahead of 96% of them.

This is a PR by over 3 minutes, but my last 10-mile race that I ran at full effort was over three years ago.

I'm pleased with my race, especially given that I had a hard, stressful week and that the weather wasn't as cool as my recent half marathon. My pace was pretty much what I expected, although I didn't factor in the extra distance you get when you can't run the tangents and you weave a lot, so I thought I'd get around 1:17:00. My husband ran a 1:14:00, which we were both amazed at. That's over 8 minutes faster than his time from last year! He's getting so fast so quickly!

Post-Race
There wasn't any time for relaxing after the race. My husband and I headed straight for the metro and back to the hotel. Our conference attendees were arriving and about 40 of them were taking a bus tour of Washington. I was the only person from my company on this tour, an as one of the conference organizers, I was in charge of making sure it went smoothly. My husband joined me for the tour, which was actually really nice and informative. Thankfully, we spent most of the time on a tour bus and there wasn't much walking involved (until we decided to walk home from the last stop. . . ) It was really interesting to learn about all the places I had just run by, and it gave me a greater appreciation for the race.

After the tour, my husband headed home and I attended a cocktail reception as part of the conference. Because of all of this, I didn't have the opportunity to write my blog yesterday. But now that I have completed this blog, hopefully I can return to sleep for a few hours before the conference begins.

Next up: The NYC Marathon!