St Albert Road Race, formerly the 10 Miler..

I took the opportunity to take what should have been a Long Run with Speed Play training run into a 10 mile (16km) race today. My thinking was to try and push the pace to see how my training is paying off. I had no expectations, I had never ran this race before and I would just see how things went. In my mind, a 1:30 or so time would have been nice.

This was the 31st running of the event and with such a beautiful morning ahead of us, me and 238 others lined up for the 10 mile run. I was surprised by the course. It had some nice hills (there is such a thing) that were not too steep. They were easy to get up, it was nice to pick off a couple runners on each one but coming down the hills was much better. I used my ample gravitational force to propel myself down and the gradual slope of the hills took little toll on my legs and knees.

I went waterless and took no gels on this run. I would not have taken anything with me if I had done my scheduled training run. I did consume a gel about fifteen minutes before that start of the race, something I had never done before. It was just a test to see how it would affect the start of the race as well as my stomach and I don’t think it did any harm.

The long run with speed play training session I was supposed to do consists of several sprints taking me into my HR zone 3 during a 20km run. I chose to do the Road Race at a faster pace and try and maintain that pace throughout. In the end, my average pace was 5:08. I was surprised, and encouraged by this as it is not a pace that I am accustomed to maintaining for a lengthy time. That pace if I could sustain it, projects to 3:36:36 marathon time, well below my best time of 4:01. But, I’m also realistic and understand that a 16km race is far from a 42.2km race.

At the end of the day, I finished with a 1:22:13 chip time, 111th out of 239 runners, 68th out of 108 men and 19 out of 36 in my age group (M50-59). I’m happy with this result.

Here’s the data…

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/751229552

Thanks to Joel Maley, the Race Director, STARRT and all of the volunteers who looked after the runners and made this a great event!

All in all, I am pleased with the way training has been going. My weight is coming down and with my average pace of this race, I’m encouraged that the 80/20 training plan is working for me.