Charles Harris 10k

Things have been busy and I am remiss with my CH10K report. I just returned from a great weekend with the rents in Florida. I am so proud of my little brother, who is now a marine and is due to deploy soon. This was a great chance to see him and also to celebrate my niece's first birthday.

A great and special time catching up with family. Also, I enjoyed doting on Ralph. My parents 17 year old poodle, that basically grew up with my little brother. He is very old and wise and I fear this may be the last time I get to see him. :(  

On to the race!

I was excited and apprehensive about this race because it was my big ‘run test’

I had gotten over the hump of the dead legs that plagued me earlier in the year, so I thought, but this would give me a chance to know for sure. I was pumped because there were several friends running with me who all had the same goal: to break 40 then beat the rest of the crew.

I was excited because I heard that this race was flatter than the Chattahoochee Challenge and featured a lot of very gentle grades, my favorite running terrain for sure. Getting to the start was time consuming due to the point ot point nature so I barely had time to warm up at all.

I lined up with my opponents: John (who I actually don’t like to think of as an opponent, it’s better for a relationship) Rosemary, Zach, and Rich. Rosemary had smoked me, no contest, at Hogpen and I had barely edged her out at Polar Bear. There was no contest between me and the other three last two races, they beat me soundly, but I knew I had my running legs under me more the last several weeks so I was hoping I could hang this time.

Although a part of me wondered if I could go faster, I really wanted to do a nice even pace that guaranteed a sub 40, because why get greedy and risk blowing up. That is about a 6:24-24 pace to account for non perfect tangent running. Even pace to me means an even effort, I’m not going to put on the brakes going downhill because that is just silly. Therefore the first mile was a bit fast with the opening being a big downhill. 6:10. John, Rosemary, and I were basically running in a pack for the first three miles and slowly reeled Rich back in. I didn’t see Zach at all, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and just assumed that he was way ahead.

I used John to block the wind for about a mile and was thinking how cool it was that we were running together even though we weren’t purposely changing our paces to run together. I still wasn’t feeling super confident about the hills so I would run my pace uphill and fall a few feet behind then charge ahead by maintaining the same effort on the downhills. After mile 4 it was just John, Rich, and I changing places and running basically together.  I had average pace showing on my Garmin and it said 6:24. I wasn’t sure it was going to be enough.

I felt like I might have a little more to give so I managed to give it a boost the sixth mile and ran a 6:01. At this point we were getting into neighborhoods and there were some short hills that threatened to derail my race entirely. Fixated on fueling properly,  I had been feeling a bit queasy prior to the race. During the race I had been happy that for once my legs didn’t seem to be holding me back, my RPE lungwise and legwise seemed to be matched. I was just about ready to (hopefully) pick it up and sprint to the finish to see if I could hold off John and Rich for a ‘victory’ (Yes, there were probably about a thousand others running but it was a race within a race!)

Then I felt a bad feeling reminiscint of the finish chute puke at the GA half marathon last year. I knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of time. Could I hold off the puke till the finish? I could see the finish line ahead, then my stomach started contracting and I was dry heaving. NOOO!!! I was still running but I could only breathe in or out with the timing of the dry heaving. I was still trying to run as fast as I could, but lack of oxygen was making me feel if I was seriously going to black out. I saw the disgusted faces of the spectators like I was going in slow motion.. I must have been  a hilarious and disturbing sight!

The dry heaving didn’t stop so I was bobbing and weaving and jogging the whole way to the line. I watched Rich, then John fly past me and there was nothing I could do to respond. Immediately after I crossed the second timing mat, I finally puked. Good timing on the puke, but the leadup really screwed me up! I was just standing there like that for several minutes until (I thought this was quite funny) a volunteer kindly asked me to move out of the way (instead of asking if I needed help, etc. I may have looked beyond help!)

 I couldn’t be too bummed because I did PR and break 40 still by almost 15 seconds. We stayed and watched for other ATCers finishing before we all went to a great brunch at Lee’s house. A fun time, and hopefully, if I can control my stomach, some low- hanging fruit for next time!

Rosemary and I after the race. I gotta watch out for her next time.. the war isn't over! :)


Here is John's quick report of the race. I thought it was too good to leave out:

My quick report:  This was the 1st time doing this race...signed up because I'm trying to work on 10k speed and I heard it was a fast course.  It, indeed, is a very fast course!  I got a quick (shorter than usual) 1 mile warm up in and lined up with Rich and Zach.  I knew this was going to be an epic battle between the 3 of us and Bethany.  My goal was to get sub 40 minutes for the 1st time and I wanted to start out conservatively, not going too much faster than my goal avg pace (6:26/mile).  The first mile was a lot of downhill and I couldn't help from running faster than planned.  I've even told Rosemary that I should slow down, but it just felt too good running downhill!

Rosemary hung with me like a champ until about mile 4 and I was worried that she might surge and join my personal war with Rich and Zach.  Bethany and I ended up running close for almost the entire race and we finally caught Rich and slowly reeled in Zach.  From mile 4 on it was all about who was going to crack first!  The lead changed hands multiple times with all of us surging then dropping back at one time or another.  It was so much fun to be running a "tactical" race, but unfortunately I didn't know the course well enough to play my cards right.  With about a quarter mile to go, Bethany was in the lead but starting to slow a bit.  Rich put in his usual, ridiculous surge up what I thought was the last hill..I countered but then about died when I saw there was another short hill to crest!  He kept accelerating as I started slowing.  Rich ran past a slowing Bethany, who I later heard had been puking 200 yds from the finish line (what a warrior!).  I also ran past her in the last bit before the finish, looking over my shoulder in fear that Zach was gonna sneak up on me.  Zach crossed the line and proceeded to puke just past the chute!  We ended up Rich, me, Bethany and then Zach...what a fun race!  PRs for all 4 of us, but more importantly, we all left it all on the course today...literally, in Zach and B's case!  Without them pushing me there would have been no way I beat my previous PR by a minute (39:43).