Rolling at the Triad Ten Miler

Triad Ten Miler Start

This past weekend I was again in North Carolina to do a race hosted by Trivium Racing, the Inaugural Triad Ten Miler. Needless to say after last weekends fiasco during the swim section of the Ramseur Lake Triathlon, I was very happy to have to only run. After a good four mile warm up doing a preview of the first and last two mile stretches of the course I was ready to go and was pretty sure this was going to be a lot hillier than I had expected... I was right!

I felt really good during my warm up and even though the course was a little more challenging than expected, I was sticking to my goal of pushing a 6:10/ mile or better pace. As the horn sounded we were off and right away a group of four took up a blistering pace at the front of what I figure was a 5:10 pace or better because as I looked down at my Garmin I was doing a 5:30 and they were still moving away from me quickly. I knew I could not keep my current pace up the entire race so I settled in with the second group and as we made our way through the the first set of rollers I was feeling fine.

Through the first three miles I was pushing comfortably just slightly above my 5k race pace and as I entered into mile four the hills really started to become more challenging. They were not long, but definitely steep so I was now either pushing a 6:30 pace up the hills or rolling at a sub 5:30 pace on the downhills to try to maintain my overall goal. At about mile six I was still ahead of my goal time, but now my choice of shoes became a factor. I went with my Zoot Sports Ultra Speed racing flats and the lack of cushioning started beating up my legs a little more than I was comfortable with. These are great shoes and I love them, but I think they are better suited for 10k's or less.

Starting in on the last three miles of the race I was trailing slightly behind the second group and now laboring to just maintain my pace to keep my goal in sight. Mile eight had several steep rollers that totally wiped me out and I knew if I could just hang on to mile nine I would be OK. As I took the left turn back on to the finishing stretch I worked to regain my focus mentally and looked back to see that another group of three had split up and was fast approaching. I tried my best to turn on the jets for the last mile and just didn't have as much in the tank as I would have hoped for. After two of the three caught me I was able to still hold on for tenth place and a finishing time of 61:13. Looking at the results, the overall winner finished in under 52 minutes and on that course he was hauling!

During my cool down my calves were blown and I could tell I had pushed as hard as I could so I was very please with my effort and result. I popped some of my ENERGYbits and headed over to the awards ceremony pleased that I was able to Runwell!