Sunday, April 11

Running the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler

I ran the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler this morning.  It was a beautiful morning to run, although most of the cherry blossoms are history.  The weather was perfect--sunny and temps in the low 60s.   I ran the race as hard as I could, since I was determined to break 80 minutes.

My clock time was 83 minutes and 48 seconds, but my net time (time from start to finish line) was 79 minutes and 35 seconds!!!  That is a sub-8 minute mile (7:58 average) for a 10 mile race.  If I could do that for a marathon, I'd qualify to run the Boston Marathon.  There is no way I could now run that pace for 16.2 more miles.  I was dying at the end today.

The best thing about running these races is beating much younger and much more fit looking men.  Of the 6,881 men that finished the race, I came in 1,945th.  I was 174th (out of 628) in my age category (Men aged 45-49).  I love looking at the results and seeing men half my age in my dust.

Of course, the opposite is also true.  For instance, the man that won the 70-74 age division, who is 70 years old, beat me by more than 8 minutes.  And there were a large number of ladies that trounced my time also.  However, I choose to focus on the men younger than myself that I beat.

Check back in a few days for photos.