Army 10 Miler
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Army 10 Miler For the second year in a row, Talia and I entered the Army 10 mile. This year, we were hoping the race would actually be only 10 miles long. We planned to run together and our goal was to break 85 minutes. Talia wasn’t confident in that goal, but I thought it was reasonable. The weather was so cold and so rainy yesterday that we both packed for the arctic today. I had tights and running pants, Under Armour and a sweatshirt, hat, and gloves. We arrived at 6:30AM and parked at the closest parking garage (right across from the Pentagon). This race is so much more convenient than Cherry Blossom where you have to park miles away. We got to the garment bag check by 6:45 and spent 15 minutes there deciding what to wear and what to turn in. It actually was warming up by then and I went with shorts and a t-shirt and Tal had tights and a t-shirt. In hindsight, that was the right choice. By race time, it was warm enough that any more clothes would have been too much. There were 24,000 runners registered for the race. With that many, there is no way you can find anyone you know, right? Well, I ran into Ray C at the garment check in. Talked to Bruce near the security check in. Talked to Ray the Flagman (ex JCC Masters swimmer) just before the gun went off and he even ran a few steps with us. Saw Brian at the finish line and saw Jim in the finish area too. Not bad. I only missed Lauren, Jim M, Tammy and Alona – the only others runners in the 24,000 I was looking for. Talia and I started in Wave 1. That wave of 12,000 runners went off at 8AM. The 2nd wave of similar size went off at 8:10. We were standing in about the front third of our wave. We walked and jogged for 2 ½ minutes to get to the starting line. I started my watch as we crossed the starting line. We were jogging/running by then. We started off at a good clip, but not pushing too hard. The first mile was from the Pentagon to the Memorial Bridge. At the 1-mile, I asked Talia if the pace was okay. She asked me how fast it was. I made her answer first. She felt fine and the first mile was 8:30 (including a somewhat slow start). We kept that pace and I gave her the same quiz at Mile-2. She felt fine and that mile was 8:15. Mile-3 took us by the Watergate and the Kennedy Center. She still felt fine and we did another 8:15. We changed our goal to 82:30. The weather was beautiful. In the sun, it felt warm. In the shade, it was a little cool. Our 4th mile was 8 minutes and our 5th must have been less. Mile-5 was near the Washington monument. We both were still feeling good and our 5 mile split was 40:45. We changed our goal to 81 minutes. I have to say that we were working pretty hard for the next few miles. The pace for each was between 8 and 7:30 or 7:45. I continued my site-seeing tour to keep Talia distracted. We ran by the Air and Space Museum. We ran right in front of the Capital Building. We noticed that the Federal buildings had flags at half-mast. I asked Talia if she wanted to stop for a hot dog at mile 7 ½ (like the guy in the VISA commercial). She declined. At Mile-8, our time was exactly 64 minutes. We changed our goal to breaking 80 minutes. Talia mentioned that she was going to cry if the race was more than 10 miles. Mile 8 was hard. For the first time, Talia started running a couple yards behind me. I was trying not to pick up the pace, but I didn’t want to finish in 80:01 (or higher). So, we pushed on. From 8 ½ to about 9 ¾, we struggled a bit (Talia more than me). There were a number of small up and down hills. The first ones of the race. We couldn’t quite tell how the course got off Rt. 395 and where it finished, so we plugged along. I kept pushing Talia (verbally, not literally). A few finishers on the side told us we had 200 meters to go. Finally we turned into the Pentagon parking lot. At that point, Talia sprinted by me and totally caught me by surprise. I wasn’t sure I was going to catch back up to her before the finish line. I did catch her and we finished side-by-side in 79:19. An excellent race for both of us. Given the way we ran, with negative splits the whole way, I estimate that we passed at least 1,000 runners during the race. Very few passed us. For the entire 10 miles, we were veering in and out to pass runners. Unlike any race I’ve ever run, there was never a single point in the race where we weren’t surrounded by other runners. I definitely recommend the Army 10 miler. It’s unbelievably well run and a lot of fun and there aren’t too many races that you can enter with that number of entrants. It is the biggest 10 miler in the country and the 2nd biggest in the world. |
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