Capitol Sunshine
Post race-watching for people we know.
Laura!
Rise and shine!
Up and about at 5:15 am was the appetizer of the day! Today, was the
TC 10 Mile and Marathon Events race from Minneapolis to St. Paul. You should be able to link to the course map from this link-
map.It finally stopped raining the last couple days, so it wasn't a miserable 10 mile or marathon. At the start it was about 44 degrees and fairly cloudy. It turned out to be pretty good running weather.
Nick and Becca dropped me off at about 6:05am where I just walked about for a little bit before heading to the Metrodome to relax and get ready for the run. I ended up hanging there most of the time, got in a 3:04 warm up and hit the start line. It was tough having to drop your warm ups a ways away before starting in the race. I ended up sitting there in my shorts, top, arm sleeves and gloves for fifteen minutes or so just trying to stay warm.
I said hi to a couple of people I recognized and then it was race time.
Coming off of my four miles yesterday, which was at 6:30am and cold and drizzly, I wasn't very confident. I felt pretty slow, heavy and lethargic not really the way you'd want to have a warm up the day before a big race go.
But I jumped in towards the front of the starting corral and off I went. I hit the mile split at about 6:25-6:30ish, about thirty-five seconds faster than I wanted to go out. So, I felt like I adjusted a little bit but went by Nick, Becca, Chris, Lance and Paul by Riverside Park at 12:35ish, which was about the two mile mark. That was even faster than I wanted to be at 2 miles, by about a minute and thirty seconds. But I still felt okay, proceeding to give some ground to some runners coming from behind but still maintaining a comfortably hard pace.
I got up the hill by Riverside Park and hear "that's my nephew!" I thought that was strange, so I turned my head a little bit and then heard "Dischinger!" and saw it was Mary out watching the race!
That was nice to have someone unexpected scream. I just kept on rolling, knowing I was still ahead of where I should be but there was no point to intentionally slow my pace to re-adjust. I hit about the 3, 3.5 mile mark before I saw Rachel Karel and she cheered me on too. Another time where I tried to relax and pick up the pace and stay comfortably hard.
I hit the 5 mile mark and started to get tired and then mentally faded a touch, thinking about how I had so much left to go. I hit the 5 mile mark in 31:47, if my memory serves me correctly. I continued to run faster than I wanted to, now I was about 3:13 faster than I wanted to be. My original plan was to go through 5 miles in about 35:00 and 6 in 41:00ish and start picking it up from there little by little.
So, being so far ahead, I at that point decided maybe it was my day to have a good run. I went through six miles in just under 39:00 but at that point could have been out of luck. But I must have focused back on running at that point because I don't remember a 7 mile split. I remember being at about 7.8 miles at 50:14ish, a few minutes quick still. But at that point I just had to charge hard and keep going.
I came up on 8 miles and though "ugh, two more miles still. I've got to just keep going okay, just steady for the next mile and we'll go from there." I kept rolling along on the road keeping my intensity consistent.
I got to the 9 mile mark and figured I had enough energy to continue to churn away. I was still ahead of pace after keeping a very consistent pace up to that point, surprising myself a bit. I remember thinking that if I kept rolling I could be at about 64 minutes, well ahead of my 67:00 goal.
Nine miles came and went, I veered left heading down Summit Avenue trying to continue to pick up the pace as I still felt good enough to do so. I did need someone to cheer me on a bit earlier but I kept rolling and saw the squad again at the Cathedral. At that point I felt really good and put on a nice kick to get to the finish.
It was great hearing Chris yelling "Disch!" as loud as he could as I streaked by. It was fun to see Nick smiling, Becca taking a picture and Katy taking a picture as well. I also saw Deb cheering me on but somehow missed really locking in on Bob's face. I went another 200 meters and saw Lance and Paul on the right and started kicking harder.
Also, at that point I could have just hit the ground at anytime as I was not even taking much oxygen in but was coming down the hill hard.
I come to find out later that they were waiting for me at the Cathedral and Nick approximated I'd be coming in in another few minutes-according to my predicted time. Apparently, Chris yells something to the effect of "here he comes!", still minutes ahead of where I thought I'd be. I came and went, heard Chris cheering for me and as I ran by I heard him following me yelling for me to keep going. Now that I think about it I remember trying to out run Chris at that point.
I ran through the finish in 1:02:55, about 4 minutes faster than I anticipated I could do. I walked through the finishing area got my warm ups, put them on while saying hi since they came down to the finishing area.
Here is all of my data and a link that might work?
Joel's 10 Mile Race Results(Search Dischinger)
| 10376 | Joel | Dischinger | M2229 | 96 | 49/436 | 85/2254 | 1:02:55 | 1:02:57 | 6:18 |
Well, to continue the trend of writing...
Josh came through the 10 mile in 1:24:21.
Laura came through the marathon in 3:38:27 and qualified for the
Boston Marathon! From what I hear, she's also already registered!
Maybe we'll make a trip to the East in April!
More pictures will be added later. Katy used Josh's camera and we've got to get the pictures off of that.
I'll let you know what's next!
