BAA 10K: the tardy edition

Since I haven't blogged in over a month I need to backtrack a bit.
June was, in a way, an uneventful month. After a fairly long stretch of training and marathoning I had decided to use June a a time to sort out a few small physical issues (nothing major- but I felt the real potential for the development of something unpleasant...)
(This really deserves a blog post of its own. In case I don't get around to it the short story is: ran Boston, was strong. In the following 6 weeks felt some discomfort develop. Used June to rest from running (80 mile month) Get fixed up (3 chiro/ART appt's) and to do a lot of strength/rebuilding. At this time, I declare success!)

So back on topic now.

Eric and I ran the BAA 10K a couple weekends ago.
Eric is running the BAA Distance Medley this year because this is the year of *all* the extra medals and new adventures! He ran the 5k prior to Boston and the 13.1 is in October.
I always enjoy a good 10k (but not B2B haha) so I jumped on board post haste.

AS IS THE NORM. The weather looked HOT. It was scheduled to be another 88 degree day! WHY.
Luckily, we were really looking forward to spending some time with my family in the Boston area and that was a good motivator to get pumped even when the weather looked gross.
Since the race had an 8AM start we also felt confident that it would be much closer to 70-75, which it was.

We did indeed have a terrific family (and excellent beer) pizza party! It was great to see everyone and most of my attending cousins and their spouses were competing in the Cohasset Tri the next morning. This prompted many amusing discussions about the merits/need for body glide, how to get out of wetsuits, how NOT to transition (by eating and showering) and poop. Normal stuff.

Beer EXCELLNCE

Sunday dawned all sunny. And hot. *sigh* We all got up and put on body glide and tried to poop and then went off to our various race destinations.

Eric and I hopped on the T which was wicked convenient and off we went.
There were other runners on the train with us, pre race cigarettes in hand, ready to go. *serious* athlete alert!

On the T. See that sun? Gorgeous but warm!

We got to the city in time to stand in a porta potty line, have Shalane Flanagan and Amy Hastings run RIGHT (as in RIGHT) by us and to try to properly self seed ourselves in an honest way. Which was dumb, because apparently everyone thinks they are faster that they are. Oh well...

You call can't be Amy, so don't try to line up with her!

We were able to watch the elites finish their warm up (it was really impressive). Old news here but Shalane went on to win and set an American Record! I am a big fan of all 3 of the women running the Olympic Marathon and it was so cool getting to see two of them up close and personal.

Front row seat!!

And then.... We were off. And as seems to be the tragic norm in any self seeding situation the going was slow for a while. I got a bit irked about this, if you can't run 6 miles at a 7:00 pace that is fine. Occasionally I can run a random mile at a 6:xx pace. One mile. Occasionally. I don't line up in the 6:00 area because I don't want to get trampled, yo. DON'T BE A DUMMY. Line up where you belong. It's OK to run a 12:00 damn mile!!!! It's ok to run a 5:00 mile!! (yikes) Go where you belong. Knock it off.

The first mile was in the shade and was bone flat, so really pleasant if I do say so. This made me feel better about the crowd (which, after running the 4 on the 4th seems more like a litttttttle traffic jam but whatever.)
I had no goal for this race other than to not vomit or feel like an asshole so that was nice. The thing about running a race, whether I have a big goal or not is that I'm going to give it my best shot within my current fitness level. That's basically what happened.

After mile one things got pretty warm because the shade vanished (boooo.) The crowd also thinned out and I more or less chugged along, grabbed a couple cups of water (which speaks to the intensity of the sun because 6 miles isn't really that far) and I watched the fast people whip by around the 3 mile mark.
The remainder of the race was similar, warm but reasonable running conditions. A continuation of a good effort. Pretty flat course and people moving at a similar speed to me. 

I ran a pretty solid effort which I think very accurately represented my level of fitness on a relatively flat course on a warm day. I pushed as hard as I could without being willing to vomit or foolishly injure myself. I certainly felt as though I was giving a 100% effort on the day. This pleased me as I have a tendency to swing hard one way or the other- being overly cautious or pushing much faster than my level of fitness permits. I worked the whole time. And I did not barf.

My finishing time was 47:37 which is a nice AG PR for me.
As soon as I was finished I felt like it was 10,000 degrees out as the sun was blazing down like a little skank.
I met a really nice lady (Anne? Was that you?) who somehow recognized me and told me that she read my blog. I felt like I needed to apologize since my blog is garbage! But thanks Anne, you are nice to read here and congrats on a good run!

Eric was right behind me all covered in sweat, as one tends to be. He had run a 49:05 and had had a good race too.

Team Bradlowski! So hot and smelly. Gross!

We stood in front of some amazing misting fans that blew the most icy mist that I have ever felt in June. It reminded me of a nasty Maine morning in March. I'm not sure how this worked because I did not investigate the inner workings of said misting fans but it was delightful.

We sat in the shade for a bit which was quite pleasant. There wasn't much humidity so once you got out of the scorching sun it wasn't a bad day!

View from the Shade

After that we got back on the train, headed back to Scituate, showered and had a wonderful lunch with the Triathletes, comparing notes on the day. Everyone seemed a bit knackered, which in my opinion is the real sign of a good race day!

And that was that. Eric and I headed back home so that I could get ready for the start of Camp season at 8AM the next day (hence, my delayed reaction to blogging. About anything!!)

Next up:
The 4 on the 4th, a horrible time
The Harrison 5K, why is it always 90?
Marathon training: it begins