Victory Week 10 Miler Race Report

Well this past week was Victory Week here for the mighty 1st Infantry Division, the OLDEST active duty division, and each year at around the Division's birthday, we celebrate by holding a Victory Week were the units in the division compete against each other in many different sports, like water polo, basketball, flag football, soccer, and other team events (little known facts: People think that Kansas is known for being a basketball state; WRONG, water polo!  Yup!).  I am not sure about that fact, but hey, why not!

LTC(R) Ted Leblow (center in Big Red One singlet) was the team captain last year.

Well as part of the sports extravaganza, there was a 10 mile race, which serves not only to see who has the fastest battalion level team, but to select the always competitive and fast Fort Riley Post Army Ten Mile Team that races in Washington DC at the Army Ten Miler (Last year was the 8th team, and 3rd Active Duty Army Team!), so the team has dudes who can FLY.

But I lined up this year at 0600 in the morning to take an outside chance for the team (didn't want to go too hard since I have a race this weekend too), but as we started out, I could tell, top 15 was not in it for me.  My first mile was 06:31, and I was about 45-50 people back, yeah, not happening, but will use this as a nice endurance/speed workout for the week.  I am in good shape, but my focus was short, fast races, so the 10 miles didn't hurt too bad, but if I maintained sub-7 minute pace, it would hurt.  With a capital H.

 My two photos near the finish line. Amanda got both with both feet off the ground!  Good timing!

My splits slowly slowed down, which was good, and I kept them in the mid-7 minutes thru 7 miles, and topped out at 08:07, so kept the average for the 10 miles at 07:29, which was good for me, for any distance.  Biggest thing was the wind.  Wind at your back on the way out, everyone was flying, but once they turned back into the wind, the big guys started to shrivle up.  After the turn around, I started to organize "pacelines" of runners to take turns breaking the wind and that really helped, either physically or mentally, but my groups started to move up on folks, where I may have been in the top 50 at the turn around, I finished in the top 30 or so.  Was nice to keep picking people off, but most times, my drafting buddies were shelled out the back, so sometimes I gapped up solo to other runners.  Only one big guy didn't want me to draft him and he ran all over to make sure, so I left him in my dust and told him "See you at the finish line".

But I finished up nicely (route was 10.3, so a little long) but I still PR'd my 10mile time, my 15K time, my 10K (post college) and 5K (post college) times, so overall, it wasn't a bad day at all.  Now on to my notes:

1.  The kid who won the race, WOW, was flying big time.  I think I heard he hit the 5 mile turnaround at 27 minutes or something.  I hit it at 37 and change.  So he put 10 minutes on my, in 5 miles, in a 10 mile race.  Wow, out of my league.
2.  It was hot and windy, water stops were a must, mainly for cooling on the head, not so much drinking.
3.  I figured that we would have about 100 folks out there, Nope!  it was 300 and possibly closer to 400.  Nice turnout!
4.  Wish I would have worn my running stuff, instead of my "PT" stuff.  It breathes better, is lighter, and just feels faster.  Oh well.

Overall, I am happy with my run, shows that my fitness level is good going into these next few races, so I should make some noise this year in the sprints and be good to move to fewer, longer races next year, if I keep my volume up (mainly the swimming).

But looking forward to racing on Saturday in Topeka in the Tinman Sprint Triathlon, in my new age group, the men's 40-44 (I'm still 39 right now, but the age-up rule means I race at 40!), so I am the new kid on the block for this year, good times!