After a 4 year absence from racing, I'm back! Well sort of. Back for one last race. I've continued running these past 4 years, but no more than 3 miles a day for roughly 5 days a week. Just enough to keep me in heart health shape. However this summer I realized that my running routine had become rather stale and unmotivated. I needed something to make it interesting again. So I decided to enter one last race, knowing this would be it. My last race 4 years ago wasn't that way. I didn't even consider the fact it might be my last. So this race would have a very different feel. I'd be going out on my terms. The tricky part was I decided to enter the Medtronic Twin Cities 10-Mile on October 3rd, which is a lottery selected race. So no guarantees that my number would be chosen. It's one of the largest races in the state. I wanted to run this race because it's part of Twin Cities Marathon Weekend (5k, 10k, 10 mile and marathon). I wanted to run a popular race with a good vibe. But I knew running a full marathon was too big a challenge for me to take at age 64 with two months to prepare. I wanted to run a nice intermediate distance race and the 10-mile seemed a perfect fit for what I wanted to accomplish as a final race.
I really didn't expect to be selected for this race because the number of participants were capped at a lower number than normal levels due to Covid-19. All races were cancelled last year due to Covid-19, and with the 1 year absence I figured the number of runners applying for the race would be higher than normal too. But on July 20th I was thrilled to receive an email confirming my official entry into the race. Then things became real! I had about 11 weeks to train and prepare. It was exciting to dust off my old training and tracking records and lay out a new plan for this race knowing I hadn't completed a run of more than 3 miles since 2017. My plan was to increase my weekday runs from 3 to 4 miles a day, with a longer run on Saturday's, starting with a 5 mile run and then adding 1 mile per week until I was running a full 10 miles. This would give me the opportunity to run about five 10-mile runs before race day, running about 30 miles per week once my long runs were a full 10 miles. My goal was to run the race in 1 hour and 20 minutes (an 8 minute mile pace). This seemed realistic for me. Slower than my other 10 mile races, but I'm older and won't have the same training foundation like the old days. When I was still racing I ran between 35-50 miles a week depending on the distance of my next race. So my training plan for this race was moderate in comparison as I just didn't want to injure myself and be unable to finish the race. Injuries and other aches and pains that come with aging became the primary reason why I stopped racing 4 years ago and I didn't want injuries to mess up this last opportunity to race one more time.
Unfortunately my foolproof training plan had some holes in it. First it was a right calf strain, then a left calf strain and finally an arthritis issue with my right hip. All of these issues forced me to alter my training plan with unwanted rest days which lead to shorter mileage weeks than I had hoped for. The injuries kept me from ramping up my Saturday long runs as quickly as I hoped and the injury problems tended to scream louder when I was out on a long run. Eventually I was able to successfully heal my right calf strain and my right hip issue, but the left calf issue kept rearing it's ugly head at least once per week. Despite all of this I eventually increased my long runs up to 10 miles and actually completed 5 of them leading up to the race as I hoped. However only 1 of the 5 long runs were pain free. The other 4 were all dealing with an injury issue - most notably my left calf. So heading into my race I was not overflowing with confidence. It seemed inevitable that at some point my left calf would seize up on me and potentially force me to back off my race pace and fall short of my time goal. I tried every trick in the book to heal my injuries before the race, but likely the injuries need rest to heal and I didn't have that luxury with the race rapidly approaching.
Despite my discouraging injury history these past 2 months I was pumping with adrenaline leading into race day. The race started bright at 7am, one hour before the marathon start. Both races are run the same day and start and finish at the same locations (US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis to the State Capital in St Paul). The 10 mile race simply takes a more direct route to get there. What also made this race very special to me was having my entire family there to watch and cheer me on. I wasn't expecting my wife and kids to come and bring all their young children because of the early start, but they all wanted to come watch. I have 4 additional grandchildren since I last raced. A total of 9 now and they were all there to watch and cheer. I felt guilty they had to get up so early and stand along the course before sunrise just to see me run, but so thankful they did! All went well early on. I had no trouble settling into my race pace thanks to lots of adrenaline pumping through me. I didn't get to train much at race pace because when I did, my injuries flared up every time. So it wasn't a big surprise when I felt a shooting pain in my left calf in mile 4. I stopped to massage my left calf for a few seconds before jumping back into the race. The brief massage of course didn't help alleviate the pain as I stopped for no more than 5 seconds. My mind was all over the place and I simply panicked in the moment.
I wasn't running comfortably at this point and was favoring my left calf with each stride. I was praying fervently that the pain would subside or at least not get worse and force me to withdraw. I had to finish. My family was all there and this was my last race! I passed my family for the 2nd time just before the 5 mile mark. Their cheers were encouraging but also calming. The left calf pain was intense, but not getting worse. Over the next few miles I focused on getting my form back and not altering my stride because of my left calf. It seemed to help get me back on race pace which was encouraging, as miles 6 and 7 were mostly uphill. The dreaded Summit Avenue climb I remember very well from the 5 times I ran the marathon. After the climb I was still on my race pace and felt much better about things. With 1 mile to go I pushed myself to the finish as hard as I could. I finish with a time of 1:17:59, roughly 2 minutes faster than my goal. I placed 660th place out of 6,516 finishers and 17th of 128 in my age group. It was the 10th 10-mile race I've run, but also the slowest. The competitive side of my mind immediately began wondering how fast I could have run had I been injury free. Just 2 minutes faster and it wouldn't have been my slowest 10 mile race. However, I need to and am very happy that I achieved my goal and experienced that race day high one last time. It was well worth the pain that came with it! Now it's time to truly let this injury heal.
My race results
https://www.mtecresults.com/runner/show?race=12111&rid=12093
