Race Report: Twin Cities 10 Mile

We woke up bright and early Sunday morning, ready to take the shortcut from Minneapolis to St. Paul. I looked out the window to see the rain falling and the busses lined up to take us to the start! We got ready and left our hotel around 5:45am to make our way to the start. Bus selfie was necessary.

When we were dropped off, we weren't really sure where we were heading, so we just kept following random herds of people until volunteers with megaphones directed us where to go. We found our bag drop area, but decided we didn't want to drop our stuff quite yet. We found a little spot under an awning to block us from the rain, and in no time at all, it was time to start!

I had looked at the course profile, elevation map, and previous year's splits, to give myself an idea of what to expect on the course and an idea of where I should be with my paces. I ended up ignoring all of that and just running hard. I thought I could run comfortably hard for 5 miles, and then move to uncomfortably hard for the latter 5 miles. It was going to be warmer than I wanted, so running by effort vs. a specific pace goal made a lot more sense.

The gun sounded, the corral lurched forward, and within a couple of minutes we were on our way. I yelled to Toni to run hard and we were off! There were a ton of downhills in the first couple of miles. None that I remembered or expected. I had thought it was going to be flat. Hmm... I was really nervous about thundering down the downhills and having my quads lock up, so I took it really easy. So much for comfortably hard, I guess! There were some insane downpours in the first three miles, but honestly they were welcomed. It was mid to upper 50s at the start of the race, and it would've gotten hot FAST if it hadn't been for the cooling rain. We ran into a nice breeze which really made a difference! 

1. 9:20

2. 9:23

Mile three had a decent incline followed by a big ol' downhill. I took my only GU at mile 3 because I was feeling a little hungry. Finally I felt like things had leveled out, so I started to work hard. I really loved these few middle miles of the race, because I loved how easy a 9 minute pace felt on the flat portions! Shockingly enough, looking back at the data, mile 4 was actually uphill, it just felt flat compared to the monster up and downs of the first three miles. Ha.

3. 9:37

4. 9:00

5. 9:05

I noted my time at the halfway point (47:01, 9:25 pace), and realized I would REALLY need to speed up the second half to come in under 1:30. I also was already running way over distance-wise on my watch. Mile 6 is the big climb in the race, with another hill in mile 7. I remember these hills being NEVER ENDING when I did it in 2010. Seriously. I thought I was going to die. But this time around, they didn't feel terrible. Interesting. 

6. 9:21

7. 9:01

I was feeling really strong with a 5k to go, and tried to calculate my finishing time based on a sub 9 pace. I thought to myself, self, it'd be really cool if you could run the 5k pace of the bummer-of-a-race a couple of weeks ago at the END of a 10 mile race. Challenge accepted, self. Except I didn't really remember what that pace was... I thought it was 8:40, but it was actually 8:25 hah. Oops.

8. 8:43

Mile 8 I felt like I was taking over the race. Like my legs weren't my own and I was flyyyyyyyying. Until, my watch beeped 8 miles and I was no where near an 8 mile flag. This messed with me mentally more than I'd like to admit. I had been about .05-.07 over at each mile marker, and typically expect to be about .1 over on most 10 mile to half marathon races, especially bigger races like this one. But my watch was at 8.27 when the 8 mile plume finally showed up. UFF DA. I had calculated that I could dig deep for a 5k not 3.37 miles!!! PANIC!

Luckily at this time, I also saw my HS bestie Nikki, and her whole crew cheering loud for me. They gave me such a burst of energy and love that I flew by totally re-energized! And wouldn't you know it, that when I saw the mile 9 flag, it was roughly where it was supposed to be. I suspect that the 8 mile plume either got set up in the wrong spot, or blew away with the crazy winds and that's just where it ended up. I would've bet my life that there was a tiny incline in this mile, but I guess I would've been wrong, because my Garmin says, nope, pancake flat! I guess mile 8 had a nice little downhill so it felt uphill by comparison. That's quite rude.

9. 9:03

We made our way toward the finish line and the crowds of people were already lining the course the final mile. The 10 mile started at 7am and the marathon not until 8am, so we don't get nearly as many spectators, but I was shocked at how many were out there to cheer us in! The final mile has a steep little downhill halfway through the mile, and I normally take downhills easy, but we were so close that I thundered down it. 

As I was approaching it, I saw Nikki and her fam once again, her son Miles sprinting up to me to cheer me on. YES!! I tried to pick it up the best I could that final mile and when I saw the finishing time at 1:27 I thought, hmmm maybe that's right and my watch is wrong. Ha.  

10. 8:18

With about 3 strides to the finish line, I had a huge dry heave, I crossed the finish line and had quite a few more. Some guy came to check on me after I crossed and was leaning over, and I tried to wave him away to save his shoes. Luckily for me, but mostly him, that my stomach was pretty empty and once I focused on my breath I was able to let it pass.

.11 :45 (6:50 pace, 6:23 max pace)

I ran 10.11 miles in 1:31:42 for an average pace of 9:05. First 5 mile pace 9:25, second 5 mile pace 8:57!

It took forever for me to find Toni after the race, but eventually we were reunited. 

And Nikki and her clan stuck around for a bit too!

We hung out for so long that all of my sweat started to freeze, so we opted to skip the beer tent (*gasp*) that at this point had a monstrously long line to get in to, and headed back to our hotel to shower. When we arrived, there was a sign advertising race day specials, so luckily I was able to get my post-race beer anyway!

After some quick warm showers we headed back out in the rain to cheer in all the rest of our SFWR!!

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 7

Week of August 21-27

Monday Planned: General Aerobic 4 miles
Monday Actual: Since I did my long run Sunday, I wanted to do this as a recovery run. And my legs felt like garbage. Thank goodness Kyle joined me on his bike, because I would've bagged the run at .18 miles it felt so crappy. I managed to go 3.25 miles and that was plenty. It was so humid and my body felt like crap. Did I mention how crappy it felt?

I did get some kisses from this beauty after. So it was totally worth it.

Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic 6 miles 
Tuesday Actual: Toni and I met up for 3 miles before the group run and the Ale joined us for the next 3 miles. They were fairly uneventful except that my legs still felt pretty crappy. I need to sleep for like six days. Not sure where that fits in my schedule though.....

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles 6x12 sec uphill, 6x100

Wednesday Actual: 

Thursday Planned:   LT 9 miles, 36 minutes at tempoThursday Actual: It was the anniversary of my mom's passing, so I took a couple of vacation days from work. I planned to go with Toni after work, and I was just exhausted. Felt like I could sleep for days, so I opted to bail on the run, knowing I couldn't make up the miles later in the week. Womp.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4
Friday Actual: I planned to do the coffee run with Toni and I either had a alarm malfunction or I shut off of my alarm and went back to bed. I slept until almost 10am. So tired.

Saturday Planned: Rest + High Vibe Yoga Festival (so uh... I guess not really a rest day :P)
Saturday Actual: All the yoga, omg. I did 5 yoga classes, totally 7.5 hours of yoga. I was pooped, and my hamstrings were so tight and mad at me.

Sunday Planned: Endurance 12, increase pace, last 3 miles at LT: 605 Series 12 mile
Sunday Actual: Uh.... DNF 12 mile race series and long run. We got home at 10:30pm on Saturday night. I took some ibuprofen because my hamstrings were so tight and achy, I laid out my stuff and went to bed. They were still really tight when I woke up, but I figured they'd warm up as I was running. The first few steps were super painful. My immediate thoughts were that this might be my first DNF. I told myself to run 3 miles without even giving that further thought. We were going slow, but it was just a long run with a finish line, so if we took out the workout portion and just got in the miles, we were both a-ok with that. Around 3.5 miles I realized that my legs weren't loosening and that my form was getting really chopping, especially on the right side. I let Toni know that I was going to leave her once we circled back to the finish line. Honestly, if I hadn't bailed on Toni for so many of our runs for this week, I would've skipped the run this morning in hopes that some foam rolling in the morning could allow it to happen later in the evening. But I wasn't willing to really injure myself for my fall goal races just to complete a 12 mile long run. Next week is a new week with a whole lot less emotions and feelings, so fingers crossed my body bounces back asap! New rule: no yoga festivals if you're spending all your free time running all the miles and not doing all the yoga. Duuuuuuuuh.

Total Mileage Planned: 43 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 6

Week of August 14-20

Monday Planned: General Aerobic 5 miles 
Monday Actual: 5 Miles with Toni in the morning before work. Ran a mile to meet up, 3 miles together and a mile home that fest like it took six years to complete. We ran in the most eerie foggy murder setting type weather EVER. Glad we survived.




Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles 2 sets 6x100 strides
Tuesday Actual: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles with strides. I think we were 2 short on the strides. My stomach got a little wonky, so we skipped a couple to allow my stomach to chill out a bit. We were treated with the most glorious sunrise, and none of us had our cameras on the run. Fail.

Wednesday Planned: VO2 Max 8 miles 5x1000 @ 3k-5k
Wednesday Actual: 3 miles with the group run, followed by my yoga class, then Toni and I hit the road for some track work. We had a half mile warm up followed by 5x1000m repeats with a quarter of a mile recovery jog in between. Most of mine were closer to 3k pace than 5k pace, and after the run I checked the stats for the last time I did this workout and was shocked to see that my paces were 20-30 SECONDS FASTER than this spring. Wahoo!

Thursday Planned: General Aerobic 4 miles  
Thursday Actual: I opted for a rest day. My legs had a lot of miles on them and I needed a break. Plus I was single-pug-moming it, so it was hard to find time to do it.

Friday Planned: Sanford POWER 
Friday Actual: Sanford POWER + General Aerobic 4 miles. Our final POWER session of this cycle, and now we have three weeks off. Let's all hope on all hopes that I don't get injured in the next 3 weeks, k? After the lift, I went out and ran 4 super easy miles. My legs still felt heavy from the speedwork and the lift so I just got them moving.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 11 miles
Saturday Actual: Rest day. We were going to flip flop our long run and recovery run, but I was so exhausted after work that I wanted to rest instead. So we decided to go longer on the long run day.

Sunday Planned: Recovery 5 miles
Sunday Actual: Endurance 14 miles. Uff. Some crazy lady thought we should go further for our long run since we missed a few miles. I thought that we didn't get a chance to do 14 in our training plan, and last spring I bailed on ours because I felt so terrible. It was so humid. But we made it through and it was a good mental toughness run. At 13.1 miles I realized that I was 3 minutes faster than last year's Sioux Falls half. And that was with a super rough morning. YAY!

Total Mileage Planned: 41 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  39.1 miles

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 4

Week of July 31-August 6

Monday Planned: General Aerobic 4 miles 
Monday Actual: Sigh. Another rest day. I took a yin yoga class that was amazing, and I spent about 15 minutes foam rolling before class. I probably *could've* run after, but I opted for one more day of recovery to be on the safe side.

Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic 8 miles 2 sets 5x150m strides
Tuesday Actual: 3 miles and 30 minutes of yin yoga. We ran 3 miles for the group run, and my right quad was still pretty tired and fatigued feeling. I contemplated running the extra miles after but opted not to. Pretty hopeful it'll be back to normal tomorrow *fingers crossed*.

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 3 mile Wednesday Actual: Ugh. My legs hated me. During a downhill portion, my right leg locked up on me and I knew I was better off turning around and heading for home instead of pushing it for 3-4 miles, as was the plan. Womp. I got in two super easy miles, and then spent some time with the rumble roller before yoga class started. 

Thursday Planned: General Aerobic 7 mile 
Thursday Actual: General Aerobic 7 mile. I was really nervous about this run and how my legs would feel. I brought my stick to work and spent all of my breaks working on my quads/it bands. And we were treated with a gorgeous afternoon of 7 miles!






After our run, we met a bunch of our running friends at our favorite local brewery to wish Sally safe travels as she departs on her next adventure. She's such a lovely human/yogi/runner and will be missed dearly!!

Friday Planned: Sanford POWER
Friday Actual: Sanford POWER. I really wanted to do an easy 2-3 miler after POWER to get the fatigue out of my legs, but I didn't have enough time to get ready for work. Womp.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 9 miles
Saturday Actual: Ugh. My legs just weren't having it on this run, and I was way underfueled. I ended up calling it quits and turned around at 1.5 miles for 3.33 for the day.

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: Endurance 9 miles. Whoo! I was nervous my legs were still going to be toast like yesterday. My hamstrings were kind of ouchy before I started, which is something I never deal with, so that was weird. I suspect I was working them extra hard with weird form on Saturday. Extra bonus points for calling it early, I think. Luckily they warmed up within a mile.

The rest of the run was great. Really smooth, fairly even splits, and it was magical being able to run long at 10:30am in August and not melting. I finished and felt like I could've ran for another hour which is a damn good sign for where my fitness is right now. Wahoo!!


Recovery game: so strong. 
Recovery socks AND recovery sandals. Hoka sandals are just as weird looking as Hoka shoes but they feel magical!


Total Mileage Planned: 31 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  24.37 miles

Twin Cities 10 Lottery Results

Last spring, it was decided that Toni and I would enter the lottery for the Twin Cities 10 mile. We're both doing the Twin Cities Marathon in 2018 (my first in 4 years, her first EVER) and I thought it would be really cool to do the 10 mile the year prior, both to get to experience the excitement of the race, cheer on all our SFWR friends doing the full, and also get a reminder of what the last 8 miles of the marathon are, because they're some challenging miles!

It was decided. I took vacation time from work, I booked us a super expensive hotel at the finish line that has a shuttle to the race start. So then we waited until July 7. And waited. And waited. All along, just knowing and expecting to get in.

Finally the last day for lottery registrations was upon us, so the next morning I woke up checked my email and credit card report expecting to see a race fee/race confirmation and didn't see either. What? I looked closer at the website, and realized that lottery entries wouldn't be determined until Wednesday, the following day. Ugh.

Wednesday morning Toni and I were up super early to run. As soon as I got home, I again pulled up my email and credit card report expecting to see good news. Nope. Hmmm.... I had story times all morning at work, so I had Toni checking her email and texting me to alert me with good news. Nothing.

We have a group Facebook page for our running group, and a few of our friends started to post the they were in. Uh... nothing yet here. Shit. The email instructions said that the lotteries were being drawn on a rolling schedule that could take up to 8 hours, so I didn't panic.

Yet.

I worked a partial day on Wednesday because I was scheduled to work the weekend, and got in a glorious nap as I'd been getting up in the 4's most of the week to run. I woke up around 5:30pm and was devastated not to see an email. STILL. BUT there also wasn't a sorry to inform you email either, so there's still hope, right?

Around this time I started stalking all of the Medtronic TC 10 event posts on Facebook, and it appeared that many many other people still hadn't heard anything and their appeared to be some technical issues of people getting an email that they didn't get in, and then one that they did get in, groups of people who signed up as a team where some of them had heard they were in and others nothing. This all calmed my nerves slightly, but I still started looking closer at the Crazy Horse half, our back up plan, as well as lodging in the area.

I went to teach yoga, checked my email before, and immediately after class, and still nothing. At 8:06pm (class ends at 8pm) Toni called me. "Check your email!" Huh... I just had. "We got in!" I made her forward me the email as proof, as I still didn't have anything, and sure enough, an hour later I got my email too!

I'm so excited to take the shortcut to the capital in October! Because only crazy people would've put in 50 miles of training for a race that they're not even officially "in" for, right?