Luke - 11

This morning was the Oregon Marathon Relay.  Teams of 2-6 can run a marathon, teams of 2-3 can run a half marathon, and there is also an open 10k.  Marathon teams run a 10k, then 5k, 7k, 5k, 10k, and 5k; half marathon teams go 10k, 5k, 6k; the open 10k runners run with the people doing the first leg of the relays.  The course is a 5k loop, so the people running 10k do it twice, and the people doing 6k or 7k do a little extra section in the middle of the 5k loop.

I ran the leadoff 10k for our half marathon team, Ancestors of Lazarus.  We got the name from this Google search.  Jenny ran the second leg (5k), and her boyfriend, my roommate Patrick, ran the last leg (6k).  Here is a report of my race, you can skip to the end for results if you want.

Started out in front, 2 other serious-looking guys also in front, the three of us got out to a good start and were alone in a group by 1/4mi in.  Guy in yellow leading, guy in red ~5m behind him, me ~2m behind red.  1/2 mile in the 3 of us were in a tight group, yellow, red, me.  Red took the lead at about that point and I went with him, just stayed as close behind him as I could, and we put ~5m on yellow.  Came through the mile in 5:30, I felt really good--my breathing had been a little labored to start out but it had settled down.  A little after the first mile marker yellow caught back up to us and re-passed us; we stayed with him for maybe 1/8mi before red fell off and I just tucked in right behind yellow.  He led through the 2-mile post; I split 5:42 for that mile and it felt pretty easy.  I figured I would stay right behind him through the first lap (5k) and then pull away if I still felt as good.  He led through almost 3 miles, but I decided to pass him a little before that because I was really feeling good.  Third mile was 5:39.  It's a downhill into the start/finish area and I threw a little surge in and I'm pretty sure he slowed down when I passed him; I think I came through about 10 seconds ahead of him for a 17:25 5k.  I was going to throw my mittens to Patrick and Jenny after the first lap but I didn't see them, so I just threw them off to the side instead.  I was all alone, and had to make myself keep concentrating.  I came through mile 4 and my watch said 5:01 and I said "Jesus!" and then realized I had hit my watch at the 5k so it was really a 5:35 mile.  There was an official pointing the way at the 4-mile mark and as I passed him he said, "Next guy's about a hundred yards back."  I was still feeling pretty good, and came through mile 5 with a 5:31 for just under 28 minutes--probably had an 8k PR since that's 4.96 miles and my PR there is 27:59.  The course has a lot of turns in the third mile, so you can see people behind you pretty easily, but I didn't see anyone as I passed the point where I would have seen if someone were about 200m behind me.  I still wasn't feeling too tired, but I didn't feel like I could go faster--probably because of my lack of speedwork in the past year.  Came through mile 6 for a 5:30, and finished the last .2 in another 65 seconds for a total of 34:34, a PR by 25 seconds.  The next finisher (yellow guy) was in the Open 10k and I think ran 35:47.  Red guy came in around the low 37's I think.

Jenny had hoped to be under a half hour, and I told her she could be under 27 but she didn't believe me.  While she was running I was talking to Patrick and said I thought she'd come in under 9-minute pace, so like 28 minutes.  She ended up running 26:50.  A guy from the red team passed her with about a mile to go, finishing about 2 minutes in front of her.  Patrick ran his 6k in 28:37, and one person passed him about a mile in, so our team ended up third overall in the Half Marathon Relay.

After the race we commented that we should have gotten one more person and run the full marathon relay, me doing 10k, 7k, and 10k and the other 3 doing 5ks...I'm pretty sure we would have won if we had, actually.  Probably by about a half hour.

We waited around for awards and pretty much everyone got medals, no matter the accomplishment.  I don't even think the 10k "winner" got anything more than that, so I wasn't too unhappy about not being noticed for being the fastest person there (I'm pretty sure my 10k time divided by 2 beat all the 5k times).   The shirt is pretty slick though, and Jenny for some reason got a dri-fit shirt even though she only paid for the regular cotton.  Good day!

Recap:

10k race in 34:34 (PR by 25 seconds).  Splits: 5:30, 5:42, 5:39, 5:35, 5:31, 5:30, 1:05 (.2mi).  5k splits of 17:25, 17:09.