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2017 Lam Research Heart & Soles 10k race report

2017 Lam Research Heart & Soles 10k race report

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Admittedly, I’m one of “those” runners who always sign up for the longer event option. If there’s a race and it’s offering participants the opportunity to run 26.2, 13.1, 10k, or a 5k, I can all but guarantee that I’ll be running 26.2. Given this, maybe it’s unsurprising that most of my races over the years have been full marathons and half marathons — almost 30 of the former, and a little over 30 of the latter, I think — which is great and all, but it leaves me fairly clueless about how to a) train for short stuff and b) how to actually race short stuff. Like I’ve said before, my usual 5k strategy is go out hard and die a little with each mile and death-march it in, and it’s fairly safe to say that that same strategy extends to other shorter distances as well.

Tangential backstory aside, when I was registering for spring/March short races, I decided to register for an outright 10k — read: a 10k that didn’t involve me pushing the baby in a stroller — for probably the first time in… four years? Five years? The last 10k I can remember running was in Chicago, over Super Bowl weekend, with my friend David and my former student Mustafa, and it was staged out of Soldier Field, where the Bears play. February in Chicago is frigid, and aside from the cold factor, I just remember the aforedescribed “death marching” that I posted in the back part of the race. I distinctly remember going out in the high 6s/low 7s (bwahaha, had no business being there, unless I was literally on fire) and then finishing probably closer to 8s. It was effing bruuuutal. It’s probably not surprising then that I haven’t raced an outright 10k since.

Lam Research sponsored the Heart and Soles 6k and 10k this year, and I’ve been aware of this race for as long as I have lived in SJ, though I’ve never run it. This year’s race changed distances (5k to 6k and 10k) and location (GRT (I think) to Santa Clara, San Jose, and Avaya Stadium) and maybe even race weekend, too. For all intents and purposes, it was like a brand new race to me, so I had nothing to go off in terms of setting some pre-race goals or expectations. The map made me think that it’d be pretty flat, if not also a bit confusing, but I figured the jaunt through Santa Clara University, Avaya, and San Jose should be pretty fun in only the totally sadistic way that short races can be.

After a couple mile warmup and some milling around, I toed the line and eventually found my teammate, Greg, who’d also be running the 10k. We were surrounded by very small children at the starting line, as well as surely a bunch of 6k runners (hard to tell because our bibs all looked the same), and after some remarks from the race staff and my representative, Ro Khanna, who had returned for a Town Hall later that day, we were off. There is something so magical about the start line of a road race, and it’s hard not to be just genuinely happy when you’re nervously awaiting the gun to go off. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Ro Khanna chatting it up with runners moments before the start. (PC: the race)

Right out of the gate, my hunch that the race could get tricky later on was verified, particularly when I noticed volunteers on the streets holding signs that said something like “10k first loop” or “10k second loop.” Two loops?! We’re running two loops of something?! Effffffffffffffffffffffff. I put the uneasiness aside and tried to just focus on running comfortably very hard — a fairly unscientific view of what a 10k pace should feel like — and stay amongst the lead group. Right away I noticed a woman who was within reach of me, maybe within a few steps, but for some reason, my gut told me she was doing the 6k, so I purposely didn’t pursue her. Aside from going over a couple highway overpasses, the course was pancake flat as it cut through SC and SJ, just as I had suspected it would be.

Weirdly, running in Avaya Stadium was literally that: running in the stadium. I guess I had envisioned running on the field (I know, I should have known better), but instead, as we entered the stadium around mile 1.5 or so, we literally ran around the inside of the stadium, the part that you’d be walking through if you were attending a game and needed to go pee or go buy a pretzel or something. Hell, there were still bags of trash on the floor from Friday night’s game for the custodial staff! It was still pretty cool to see the field from closely afar, if that makes any sense, but I was also fairly cautious to take things easy because the pavement felt pretty slick in spots. After getting spit out of the stadium around the 2-mile marker, we were back on the city roads in SJ and headed back toward SC.

Things got a little dicey at this part, and I could have fared significantly worse. I really don’t know how to adequately describe it, and based on the course map (and my GPS), I know I went the right way, but basically seemingly out of nowhere, a car appeared on the course, right after or around mile 3. Essentially, we runners were running in one lane (let’s say going east), but then right away we had to make a hairpin turn, run up a ramp (away from our original direction of travel), and hop over a few lanes of traffic to get into a west-bound lane. As I was doing that, I instinctively looked behind me to check my blind spot — even though I couldn’t hear any cars behind me (and I never run with headphones) — and lo and behold, there was a sedan there, just hanging out, NBD, casually stopped mere paces away from me on its own volition, not because a volunteer/cone was there that directed it accordingly. Fortunately, the driver graciously didn’t run my sorry ass over, so I crossed through his/her lane, and then I was safely in the westbound side of (seemingly closed off) traffic. I have no idea what happened here. I didn’t memorize the course map or anything, and I totally get that the onus is on runners to know where they’re supposed to go. How that car got there was beyond me, but since I was literally in the middle of a race, there wasn’t anything I could do about it, save for hoping that no other runners or walkers behind me would encounter a similar issue.

I say this lovingly, as someone who is a huge supporter of local races and as someone who has run hundreds of races by now — what the hell!? I mean, really — what the hell!?  How was I almost clipped by a sedan in the middle of a 10k road race!?!?!? That was enough to rattle me for a while, and I couldn’t help but play out all the holy shit, what if I hadn’t looked behind me before crossing over??? hypothetical scenarios in my head. I have no idea what happened here; shoot, maybe traffic was blocked off, but there was some renegade car playing by its own rules that morning. Maybe a cone got moved or something. No idea. It could have been really horrible, like catastrophically horrible, though.

Not long after that, we were back into the thick of the Santa Clara University campus, making our way to the finish line area, and that’s when I saw for sure that the singular woman in front of me was, in fact, running the 6k. I had begun to think around the 6k mark, as we 10k runners began to do a sweep of the other side of the SCU campus, that I might have taken things out too hard earlier; I wasn’t in pain or even real discomfort, necessarily. Retrospectively, I think it was more of a healthy amount of good ol’ fashioned doubt than anything else. I knew with certainty that by the 6k mark I was the first female, and regardless of what my time was, I wanted to try to hold on to that lead, and really fight for it for as long as I possibly could. I didn’t think there were a ton of guys in front of me either, but more than anything, I just wanted to finish the thing as strongly as possible. I had grandiose aspirations of trying to get to as close to 40 as possible — I’d love to go sub-40 in a 10k, but my (marathon) training’s not there for it now — so I tried to proverbially “lean into” the last bit of the 10k, the part that gets really gritty, really fast.

Sometimes I think that trying to transcend or dissociate from racing pain and discomfort is the way to go, but more and more, I’m beginning to think that there’s beauty, strength, and power — of the rawest and unadulterated forms — in acknowledging and working through the mid-race discomfort, doubt, or pain. If given the opportunity to negate any presence of pain/discomfort/doubt or telling it all to go to hell, that I got this, thank you very much, I find it much more empowering to pursue the latter than the former. 

Shortly after the 4 mile marker (by my watch — I only saw two mile markers, one at mile 2, and another at mile 5), we were routed through a cul-de-sac type of area that left me literally yelling and motioning mid-race to an officer for direction because it wasn’t obvious where to go. After mile 4, I caught up to a young guy who was doing some weird pogo-like motions while he was running (hey bro, you do you), and he stayed stride-for-stride with me for about a minute, asking me how much more was left of the race. By mile 5, by myself, I began counting down (up) to 6.2, which typically means shamelessly singing children’s songs in my head: the usual favs are ABCs, Old McDonald, or really anything that I can add verse upon verse to (riveting, I know). We looped around what was more or less the backside of the race starting area, and remember those signs that I saw in the beginning, the ones that indicated 10k lap 1/10k lap 2? By the end of the race, as the 10k runners were merging into the 6k runners (or into the 10k runners still on their first loop), those signs signaled that 10k runners — but only those who had already done that loop around the farthest side of campus — had to stay over to the far left side to make the final left turn into the finisher’s chute. If this sounds confusing as hell, it absolutely was, and this race, too, much like SIB, had the same challenge that any multi-distance race has with the merging runners at the tail end of the event. Minor chaos.

I’m proud of myself for fighting until the very finish and posting a 41:09.  It amounts to about a 2 ½ minute 10k PR, and I won the females’ side and finished 11th or so overall. My pacing got a bit sloppy, but if nothing else, it’s excellent feedback for my next attempt at this distance. Unfortunately, my teammate, Greg, who was poised to run sub-36, succumbed to the confusing course marking, so he ended up finishing after me and ran an extra mile-plus in the process. :/  Greg and I ran another 5k or so as a cool-down, rehashing the race along the way, and I stuck around for the awards ceremony and for pictures. I was hoping my representative would still be there, but alas, he had bigger fish to fry that morning (and anyway, I got to see him again that day when I attended the Town Hall). Racing in the morning, politics in the evening: good times.

team! thank you, nice stranger, for this picture.

With some logistical changes, this race could be fantastic; minimally, I think better course markings would go a long way. I understand that politically, this was a huge event to coordinate, given it spanned two cities and a professional soccer league stadium, but it’s hard for me to enthusiastically support a race that’s run on city streets that aren’t (or seemingly aren’t) closed off. Again, there’s the possibility that the car I encountered was an anomaly, but it still makes me really nervous. I don’t need a race to charge me an exorbitant fee to participate just so I can get a shirt and a medal; frankly, if it’s up to me, I’d gladly take a race without those offerings, provided that I have the assurance of running on a closed-to-traffic course. (FWIW, this 10k was pretty inexpensive, maybe about $35). Regardless, I had a lot of fun on race morning, and I got the opportunity to race a distance that I haven’t done in many years now, so I’ve little to complain about. If I’m all about getting gritty in the spring, man alive is a 10k an excellent place to do it.

I likely won’t race another 10k until the Marin 10k, a PA race, over Memorial Day weekend. It’s probably good, too, because holy moly, this distance is tricky — or rather, let’s call it “calculated.” It’s got to be harder than HM effort, but not as redlining as 5k effort. You have to have the endurance to cover the distance, but the distance also necessitates a speed and effort that is just taxing as hell. It’s like you can’t allow yourself to get tired because, unlike 5ks, 10ks aren’t over “just in a few minutes” (seemingly). The speed and endurance combination is a fascinating duo to balance, but to me, as someone who is comfortable with the longer stuff, a 10k seems more “manageably difficult” than a 5k. Who knows, though; being nearly a week removed from the race, I might be needlessly romanticizing it and applying a hefty dose of revisionist history to it. Bottom line: 10ks are hard, and very fun, in a sick and twisted sort of way. By the time Marin rolls around, I’ll have already started SF training, but I’ll be looking forward to seeing what I can do in late May, on an also flat course, but with a faster field.

I’ve dedicated my winter training and my spring racing to getting acclimated, comfortable, or at least not fearful of the shorter stuff. While I maintain that this short stuff has me waving to my Comfort Zone or to my Happy Place from the other side of town, I can absolutely get a glimpse of what makes people of all paces gravitate towards these distances. I’m not ready to hang up my marathon shoes yet, but I think I will be a bit more inviting of these shorter/harder efforts sprinkled through my marathon training from now on.

2017 she.is.beautiful (Santa Cruz) ‘baby mama’ 10k race report

2017 she.is.beautiful (Santa Cruz) ‘baby mama’ 10k race report

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Sunday was the seventh annual she.is.beautiful 5k and 10k down in Santa Cruz, and it was my third consecutive year running one of the “baby mama” stroller divisions. In 2015, I ran the 5k pregnant while pushing A; in 2016, I ran the 10k while pushing G, and last weekend, I returned to the 10k again with G, 12 months older (and 12 months heavier). When I ran the 10k in ‘16, I was a week removed from my spring almost-PR marathon and obviously had an entire marathon training season’s worth of volume, speed, and endurance in my legs. This year, as I’ve belabored in earlier posts, I’ve opted to spend my spring doing shorter stuff before getting into marathon mode for SF. Going into the SIB 10k on Sunday, then, I was most interested in seeing how much (if any) time I could take off from my ‘16 race, given my change in focus from last spring compared to this spring. Call it an “experiment,” if you will.

I’ve written before about my general distaste for women’s races, but I think it’s worth mentioning again, even if just momentarily. What sets SIB apart from other races in its “class” is just that: the classiness with which SIB treats its runners. My experiences and observations with/of many other women’s races is that the races treat women (the very people to whom they are marketing their race!) as some sort of diminutive, non-sweating, pedestal-sitting object whose physical strength is secondary — a far and distant second — to basically anyone or everything else, including a “hunky” male who will literally reward women for their race day efforts. “Hunky,” shirtless firefighter putting race day “bling” around a woman’s neck, anyone? C’mmoooooon. I guess some women find that … rewarding? perhaps? but I tend to swing toward the “this is ridiculous and condescending” route. I think this line of thinking, that women somehow can’t work or race hard, get gritty, or get “race day ugly,” for lack of a better phrase, simply because they are women is so problematic it’s sickening. I have absolutely no patience for races, running brands, or bullshit marketing companies out there who continue to propagate the anachronistic idea that women are incapable of working really, really hard. I mean, FFS. It’s 2017. And, for the record, this isn’t about the tutus or the pink that usually accompany women’s races; obviously, you can race damn well while wearing a tutu or pink. Wear what makes you happy and comfortable (and chafe-free, obvs). Hell, go for a princess dress! That’d be amazing!  The assumptions about female runners that typically underpin and accompany women’s races are what really get under my skin.   

SIB, in contrast, is all about the empowering, self-love, talk-to-yourself-how-you’d-talk-to-your-best-friend vibe and doesn’t at all propagate any of the aforementioned vom-inducing nonsense. It caps at 6k runners between the 5k and 10k races (and accompanying stroller races). I have no idea for sure, but I imagine that SIB is many participants’ first race ever (how cool is that?!), with many folks running or walking the race as a family affair with their kids. It’s a race, no doubt, so there is definitely the endorphins and adrenaline aspect, but there’s also this inexplicable but damn near tangible vibe that I get every time I run this race. The race is pretty solid; the company, the atmosphere it produces, is top-notch. It’s a race weekend that I look forward to each year because I’m giving myself the opportunity to run as hard as I possibly can (while pushing a daughter of mine) but also because it leaves me buzzing with feelings of gratitude, appreciation, joy, and love for days afterward. It’s just good for the soul, I guess. Trite but true.

On race day, a gaggle of my Wolfpack teammates and I met up at a teammate’s (Jen) house in Santa Cruz and ran 2 miles and change over to the new starting area (the third new starting area in as many years). Meg and I (and the babes) got to catch up, and we quickly found Paula and her littlest in the starting area as well. Lots of pics, smiles, fist-bumps, and reassurances to the starter that yes I know we have strollers but no, really, we should be lining up here up front later, and it was go time.

warming up near the boardwalk with Meg and our daughters. (PC: Lisa)

 

with Meg, her baby (K), and G at the starting line. thanks for the free race pics, SIB! this pic makes my heart sing.

I don’t do 10ks very often (read: ever), but I thought I’d take a leap of faith by starting out fast (and getting out of the throng quickly) and just holding on for as long as possible, hoping that a fast start would mitigate the challenge of the last mile or so, at least a little. I knew it’d be tough to hold the tempo pace that I’d usually try for (solo) while pushing my baby, but I thought I’d at least give it a go. Other than the new starting area, the course was about the same as I remembered: a lovely jaunt through a neighborhood, some nice ocean running along West Cliff, and for the 10k runners, a bit through Natural Bridges state park before heading homeward. The 5k and 10k runners shared the course until after the mile 2 marker, and I loved giving some shoutouts to the lead runners (my teammates!) as they were beginning their “back” portions of their run. Seeing Dave and Paula’s family at mile 2 was also a nice perk.

I always wear sunglasses, and I always bun my hair up when I run. For some reason, I did neither at this race. I love G’s little hand! hello to my teammate, Kim, behind me!

 

what up, FitFam6 family! (PC: Dave)

 

hollering for my teammate, Julie, who’s about to go on to cinch 2nd in the 5k . That little pink tattoo is from SIB: “she fiercely believed in herself, and that made all the difference.” Such good stuff and applicable for every athlete (pronoun change notwithstanding). (PC: Dave)

 

tangent hugging and onward to another neighborhood before Natural Bridges (PC: Dave)

 

Unlike last year, G was awake for the entirety of the run, death-gripping my Hoka waterbottle I got for being on Team Hoka for the race (and getting the bottle back from her wasn’t a battle I was interested in pursuing), and eagerly yelling BALLOO! BALLOO! whenever we passed by balloon arches at each mile marker. Hey, now I can say that I’ve used a sippy cup for my in-race hydration needs! We jammed to Mother Goose Club, strange race day tunes to be sure (and only mildly embarassing as I passed other runners and walkers; sorry for the soundtrack, friends!), and at the 10k turnaround before Natural Bridges, teammate Lisa said that G had a huge WEEE LIFE IS SO FUN! grin plastered across her face. #score

Mentally, I told myself that this should feel like a very hard and hilly tempo run since, in general, stroller running (to me) often feels like I’m running uphill, due to the resistance of the stroller plus the weight. During the race, I tried to focus on turnover as much as I could and perhaps even got a bit too overzealous with this, as my foot kept clipping my back left tire, and I’m lucky I didn’t trip or otherwise wipe out. I cheered for all my buddies when I saw them on my “back” portion of the course, entering into NB, and I braced myself for the final mile or so.

Things get really hairy about 1-1.5 miles out from the finish, right where the 5k and 10k runners merge back together. Every year that I’ve run this race, particularly the 10k, things get dicey with faster runners trying to navigate around slower-moving 5k runners and walkers. Add to the mix 5k stroller runners and walkers, or any other 10k stroller runner, on a street that’s already not that wide to begin with (and whose other side is filled with 5k and 10k runners/walkers still on their “out” portions), and it’s messy, if not also a bit unsafe. Even with volunteers or cones demarcating on which part of the road slower runners/walkers should be for their “back” portions — as the race did this year — it’s still somewhat of a free-for-all. I tried every yell I could think of, like “on your left!,” “on your right!,” “stroller back!,” “10k runner coming through!,” and only had limited success. Another (non-stroller) 10k Arete team runner and I worked together over the last mile and change, taking turns yelling and alerting the other runners so no one clipped ankles, tripped, or wiped out, and as far as I’m concerned, I should have called this Arete runner Moses because she was veritably parting a sea of people whom I’d otherwise not have been able to do by myself (or as effortlessly, anyway). Wow, was that teamwork ever appreciated. Thanks, girl.

Hoka sponsored a contest within the race over the last half mile on the course, urging participants to finish their races as fast as they possibly could, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that I could even try on that section simply because the road was too thick with participants. Ultimately, I slowed down a little, down to my slowest mile of the day, but I didn’t take out any runners with my front wheel, so I am calling this late-in-the-race-frustration a success. It’s a tough thing to navigate, though; I really don’t know how the race can accommodate so many runners, on not a wide space, in the final stretch of the race, and manage to get slower runners and walkers over from the faster finishers. I regularly cheer for other racers even when I’m racing, and I genuinely believe that a participant’s race experience is meaningful and valuable, whether she’s the first across the line, the last, or somewhere in between. I don’t want to come off as some Queen B who’s yelling at people to move; really, I just want everyone to have a safe and fun experience. It’s hard to do that when you’re coming in hot at the end of the race and have to zig-zag through a narrow space and push a bigass stroller in front of you and dodge what seems like a sea of humanity.

Ultimately, I beat my 2016 time by almost exactly 2 whole minutes (Garmin). Last year, my watch measured the course right at 6 miles (6.01, to be exact), and on this year’s course, I had 6.13 — not a huge deal, since it’s not USATF certified — but it just means my 41:54 pace average is anywhere between a 6:44-6:51. No big. Just good for reference. I was thrilled to see so many of my Wolfpack teammates and friends right at the finish line (and as they all crossed it), and we spent the rest of the morning goofing around at the awards ceremony, catching up, and brunching. My time put me 1st in the baby mama 10k division, making me three-peat a first place finish in a stroller division since 2015, and for my efforts, I won a pretty sweet bumbleride baby stroller. Stroller running is really tough, but it’s also a fantastic way for me to spend time with my kids, and though they will likely not remember a lot of this as they age, I will always have these experiences (and photographs of the event) to share with them. I can totally get behind that. If they decide to run when they get older, that’d be great, but ultimately I just want them to grow up knowing and seeing firsthand that taking care of your body and mind by leading an active lifestyle is important, worthwhile, and really, a lot of fun.  

with the lovely Paula and her son, as well as Meg and her daughter again. (PC: Dave)

 

pre- and post-race with many (but not all) of my teammates who raced, trained, and medical volunteered. love! (PC: Lisa/Wolfpack Running Club)

 

so many teammates! so many friends! G says “no more pictures!” I am obviously trying to wrangle more teammates! …

 

(mission success!). running is so.serious with us. More teammates and friends shot. G is about to break down (ah, toddler life); she was mad at me for taking her off a stage because she wanted to dance. 🙂

 

feeling awkward but hey, look at that sweet ride! at the aptly-named Lighthouse Point. (PC: Dave)

If you’re local, put SIB on your calendar; if you’re in southern CA, look up their race in Santa Barbara in the autumn. (And get on their email list so you can register for SC cheap in December!). I think it’d be a blast to either get my daughters to train for this run in the future or maybe get my Daisies to come down and run it or volunteer at it next year. So many options! Ultimately, while the SIB swag was great, the reward for winning so generous, and the gratification that comes with putting forth a strong effort on race day exhilarating, without a doubt, I keep coming back to this race because I get so much from the experience and the vibe. It’s just all so very, very good.