This was a 10K I ran in Brookston, IN. Things went okay, but not quite as well as I would have liked.
Here's what I thought of it in 1996:
The race didn't start until 9:00am and I managed get up at 6:45am. After hitting the snooze bar several times my day started off as
always. A glass of the grape fruit juice and orange juice combination with two
heaping teaspoons of Anabolic Activator III and a toasted bagel. Yum-yum.
Then I got dressed, packed all kinds of things in various backpacks
and gym bags and managed to be on the road by 7:30am. During the 20 minute drive
north to Brookston I ate half a banana and drank some water. It was a rainy
day, but not particularly cool, probably in the high 60's when I left.
The trip to Brookston was shorter than anticipated and I got there just
before 8:00am with plenty of time to register, get my t-shirt and warm-up. I did a
slow 20 minute run around the town and settled in for some good stretching.
The crowd didn't look particularly impressive, though there were two fast
looking highschool-aged guys.
As the time approached 9:00am I took off my Sporthill sweats and put on
my racing Etonic flats (this WWW page sponsored by . . .). In between doing
some striders I met a guy, Paul Loomis, I beat by a minute at the Purdue CoRec 8K and
had seen around at other races. We talked for a while and he wasn't happy to
hear I was going to run the 10K. I wasn't sure how things would go, but I
thought the field looked like I could eek out a victory.
The race started as the started whistled, one of those two-fingers in
your mouth deals and quite loud. I took off fast and was following one of the
fast looking highschool kids. Soon the other one passed me and I was in third
place. But I thought these guys might wimp out and do the 5K. Still I
couldn't be sure, so I worked to stay close. At one mile the split was 5:24
and I was working hard, but not feeling so terribly bad. The weather was still
okay. It wasn't cool, and it was drizzling, but it wasn't such a bad day.
There was a light ran throughout most of the race.
At 1.55 miles the two highschool guys showed their true wimpiness and
turned back. Hah! They were doing the 5K and I was in the lead. Gulp! Now I didn't
have anyone to follow and I wasn't familiar with the course and I couldn't
hear anyone, nor did I want to look back. I probably should have, but the
course was almost all straight, a simple out and back, so I didn't have any
turns to sneak a glance.
At mile two my split was 11:30. I had run a 6:06 and my pace was now
down to 5:45. This seems about par for the course for me of late. Anyway I
still didn't hear anyone so I wasn't really concerned, but I was pretty tired
and not moving as quickly as I hoped, but maybe I was going fast enough to win.
Just before mile three I started hearing footsteps.
For a while I wasn't sure if they were someone else's or just mine. A
bit further and I found out they were Paul Loomis's. He passed me and then pulled
ahead and stayed about a second in front of me through the 3.1 mile turnaround. I think my half split was 18:20,
they didn't have people yelling out the splits and the miles were not all marked.
On the way back I pushed a little harder and closed in on Paul. Around
mile four the cramp I had been feeling in the right side of my abdomen for the last mile became acute. It had been
just on the edge of bothering me for a while, but as I pushed it started
hurting a lot. I tried to alter my breathing rhythm and all that to make it go
away. As this was going on Paul was pulling ahead.
During a brief respite in the pain I managed to close to within 20 feet
and thought I could catch him on the next up hill. But the effort in closing
set the cramping off again and this time it was as bad as I have ever felt a
cramp. I had to slow up so much I thought second place might be in danger.
By the time we got to the first mile marker I was a good 50 yards
behind. My time at 5.2 miles was 31:15 and I wasn't happy. As we turned a
corner I snuck a look back to find I had second wrapped up. Looking forward I
saw Paul was still pretty far ahead. But I wanted to push and the cramping
wasn't hurting quite so much now. I managed to close to within 20 seconds of
Paul with a bad time of 37:07.22 to his 36:47.
He ended up getting a big trophy and I got a tiny ribbon for winning
my age group. Grrr! I should have beaten him and won the trophy instead of the ribbon.
But that week was be an 82
mile week with 20 miles I ran Sunday. Between those 82 miles and the prior week's 100 miles I think
my legs were dead. I haven't taken a day off since right before the CoRec 8K
and I haven't run less than six miles each day, so I'm not all that surprised my time
was a little slow.
Back to the Running Vita of James B. Elliott