Day 3,220: Atlanta 10-Miler (PR)

It took five races spanning 17 years but I finally broke my old PR.

I was running the metronome during today's Atlanta 10-Miler, with really even splits of 8:06, 8:04, 8:10, 8:07 and 8:08 when something happened to me that I've never experienced during a race. My running watch lost satellite reception in the overcast sky. And did not pick up a signal the rest of the way.

It was a weird feeling, to suddenly lose my ability to pace myself in a race in which I believed I'd have a pretty good shot at breaking a 17-year-old PR. And there was nothing I could do about it but run the best I could the rest of the way.

I ran in the inaugural 10-Miler in 2013 and my lack of fitness in it put me on a 2-year running push that let me break personal records in nearly every distance. Last year I skipped the race because of the Marine Corps Marathon. This year I nearly missed it since we originally had travel plans. (In honor of the MCM, I ran in bascially the same gear that I wore in last year's race).

I signed up for this race since I felt that since I ran within 76 seconds of my half marathon PR in this August's Hotlanta Half Marathon I would have a good shot at breaking my PR for the 10-mile distance.

But it wasn't a certainty since I've had a bout of plantar fasciitis in my left foot and a left hamstring/glute issue after running in the hilly Michelob ULTRA 13.1 atlanta earlier this month.

I've been taking it easy since then and things felt fine until Friday, when I re-aggravated my left foot on a 4-mile run in a barely broken-in pair of Brooks Pure Connect 3 shoes.

Anyway, race day came and I decided I would just try to run at an 8:15/mile pace for as long as I could. The race started nice and cool and thankfully there wasn't any rain. I'd been studying last year's post about the race from Frank's blog so I felt like I knew what to expect with the hills on the race.

One thing that confused me were the starting corrals -- they went from A to F -- only thing was my race bib did not have a letter on it. Finally I asked a volunteer and she told me that my bib would let me join any corral since it was part of the Triple Peach Race Series.

I'd signed up for the series in which you get a special medal and T-shirt if you complete the Peachtree Road Race, the Atlanta 10-Miler and the Thanksgiving Half Marathon. I completed the inaugural Triple Peach in 2013 and didn't really think it was that big of a deal. I signed up this time since doing so made it cheaper to enter both the 10-Miler and Half Marathon than doing so individually.

But the any corral perk was also nice. I jumped in Wave A and although I stood a little too close to the loudspeaker, we were off in no time. The 10-Miler and 5K races started at the same time, so it was disconcerting to see all kinds of runners darting around in the first mile.

At this point I regretted going for a more cushioned shoe (Skechers Go Run 3) to run my race instead of my Saucony Type A6 racing flats. The Skechers shoes really showed their age and with more than 337 miles on them now, this will probably be the last race that I wear them.

The 5K runners split off right before Mile 2 and the 10-Mile course resumed through the neighborhood behind Atlantic Station. Right after Mile 3 there was a substantial hill. The hills rolled the next few miles until Peachtree Road at Peachtree Battle. After my watch stopped giving me pacing information, I just tried to keep up with the pack of runners around me.

At Peachtree, we entered a mini race-within-a-race -- the conquering of Cardiac Hill. Basically, you could win a special mug if you were one of the fastest 100 runners of this mile-long route. This was an interesting part of the race for me. In the Hotlanta Half Marathon, they had a similar mini-race to run up the 12th Street hill and I was surprised that even though I finished the race in 112th place out of 1,088 runners, I was the 59th fastest person to run up that hill (no award, though).

I thought that I might have a shot at an award in this race, believing that the race participation would be similar to when I ran it in 2013 -- about 1,000 or so. It turned out there were more than 4,000 runners in this race -- I placed something in the 300s for Cardiac Hill, running it at a 7:40/mile pace. Thankfully, having run in the Peachtree Road Race 11 times plus again in the 2013 10-Miler and the old Thanksgiving Half Marathon course, I have plenty of experience trying to run up this hill!

The good news about cresting the huge double set of hills on Peachtree was that the race was nearly over. At Mile 8, it looked like I had a so-so shot of beating my PR time of 1:22:39. After climbing the grueling hill to Mile 9 (which I called soul-killing in 2013), I think I had 8 minutes to beat the time and I gave myself a 50-50 probability.

All I thought at this point was to try to run faster after running over the 17th Street overpass near IKEA. Two things happened that helped at this point, first a guy passed me and was running at a good clip, so I followed him. At about a quarter-mile left in the race, I started following a pretty tall dude and even was trying to draft behind him since it was pretty windy near Target. When we saw the finish, we both kicked at the same time -- he finished a second ahead of me but I knew that by following this guy I made my PR!

I beat my PR by 23 seconds according to the official finish. Despite Cardiac Hill and the huge hills in the second half of the race, I ran a relatively even split, covering the first 5 miles in 40:46 and the last 5 in 41:30.

After the race, I felt good although my feet were pretty banged up and I walked gingerly to my free parking spot on the side of Peachtree Road and 17th Street (when I drove up to the race at about 6:20 a.m., the street was jammed with so many cars that instead of trying for the Atlantic Station parking deck I turned back to seek parking on Peachtree).

It was a nice feeling to work my way into a PR. But I think I'll have to pay better attention to properly training for this race if I want to run in it again.

Time: 7:30 a.m.
Temp: 61 degrees
Gear: Technical T-shirt, short (Publix Georgia Marathon white), shorts, Skechers Go Run 3.