Just Stay in Front of the Cow: 2018 Cherry Blossom Ten Miler

Cherry Blossom Recap

There are races that make me want to forget I ran them, some that make me think ‘meh, that was okay,’ and others that make me want to write a blog post. Two years in a row Cherry Blossom has been the last one. I love this race! The course is flat, the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, there are plenty of familiar (and famous) faces, and the weather is usually decent. I’ll take 35 and sunny without complaints!

My goal going into the race this year was to beat my time from last year — 67:45.  I just ran 67:47 with yoyo’ing splits on a hilly course for the Reston 10 Miler so I was feeling good about this super flat course and the opportunity to be more consistent.

The Warm-up

Hubs and I ran from home to starting area, about 1.5 miles of a warm-up. After dropping our clothes at the MUCH improved bag check we ran a few sprints on the grass in front of the Washington Monument. During the warm-up run I noticed my stomach was feeling pretty funky, kind of like I was trying to be overactive right after eating. I had eaten my usual pre-ten miler breakfast at my usual time prior to the race: half piece of toast with peanut butter, 24 ounces of Nuun, and a shot of espresso at 5am, and half a pack of sport beans 45 minutes prior to the start. Shouldn’t have been a problem.

Then, when it didn’t subside by the time we started our sprints I got a little worried. I started to feel more like someone had punched me in the stomach. Have no fear I thought, my stomach was a mess before the Rehoboth Beach Half (because I woke up late and shoveled down a bagel an hour before the race), and the pain disappeared as soon as the race started. We jogged to the starting corral and I just tried to stay optimistic.

The Start

The gun went off at 7:30am and off we went after the 30-second shuffle to the start line. I needed to consistently hit a 6:45 mile so I decided to focus on my watch and the spectators, instead of my stomach. Thankfully, starting at mile 1.5 we hit the Kennedy Center turnaround point and I was happily distracted by seeing the Elite men and everyone who followed on the right hand side of the road.

Maybe the coolest moment of the race was seeing a =PR= team member, Jeff Stein, directly behind the lead pack of men, then followed by Olympic 1500m Gold Medalist Matt Centrowitz who was trying his hand at 10 miles. Shortly after, I am fairly certain I saw Meb Keflezighi!  I also caught a local superwoman, Sara Bishop, leading the women from the Gold Corral. Fairly certain she should have been in the elite start, but whatever the reason she was in my corral, seeing her killing it at the turnaround points was awesome! (Basically I was fan girling during the race).

Halfway There

I hit the five mile mark just below my goal pace, about 6:43 per mile, still dealing with the pain in my stomach. I saw my friend Eric taking photos (where all of these came from – thanks Eric!) and while that lifted my spirits, it didn’t help my belly. I was not looking forward to the somewhat long lonely stretch of Hains Point with stomach pain. Drinking water and Gatorade didn’t help, I knew it wasn’t dehydration. Where that might be debilitating I was still hitting my splits, I was just in pain. At least there were miles of Cherry Blossoms and entertainment stations ahead.

I somehow ended up neck and neck with a man running in an inflatable cow suit. He passed me earlier in the race, I passed him back, and then we settled into a very similar pace. Hearing people yell “Go Cow! Great job Cow!” definitely made me chuckle between wincing. At one point, around mile 8, a tall man came up behind me and was talking to himself, positive affirmations and a personal pep talk kinda thing. I heard him say a  few things but the one that stuck out most was “Just stay in front of the cow. You can beat the cow.”

Just Stay in Front of the Cow

The stomach pain had reached an all time high, the wind was in our faces, and the backside of Hains Point seemed like it would never end. I thought ‘what the heck — you love weird internal pep talks and mantras’ and went ahead and said to myself “Yeah just beat the cow, you can beat the cow.” I fought hard for those last two miles and found a =PR= teammate just ahead of me. We silently pushed each other up the hill to the finish line, after which I dry heaved, and crossed the finish line together. We also beat the cow! (The cow who accomplished something far more impressive than we did). I don’t know about the tall guy, but I was cheering for him.

Who was waiting at the finish line other than my husband Jeremy and our good friend Courtney, who was working as a medic. They handed me a bottle of water that I subsequently dropped next to someone else’s puke and asked me how I did. I looked down at my paused watch and….my time was THE EXACT SAME AS LAST YEAR.  67:45.  Same down to the second. That is both frustrating and amusing at the same time!

 Splits

My watch recorded an additional eighth of a mile so its splits and final pace of 6:43 were just a bit off from the official time and pace of 6:46 per mile. But damn, was I consistent!

 

Mile 1- 6:46

Mile 2- 6:46

Mile 3- 6:43

Mile 4- 6:43

Mile 5- 6:40

Mile 6- 6:47

Mile 7- 6:43

Mile 8- 6:39

Mile 9- 6:46

Mile 10- 6:42

Cherry Blossom also offers a cool graphic overview of each runner’s race through RunPix. It offers finishing position relative to gender, opposite gender, and age, how many runners you passed and how many passed you, and a lot more. I was 545th overall, 97th woman, and 39th 25-29 age group. I finished ahead of 93% of male runners, passed 250 runners, and 77 passed me. It tells a neat little story of the race. You can check mine out here.

Reflection

I didn’t achieve my goal of running faster than last year, which would be a new Personal Record, but I am happy as heck that I ran through that stomach pain and pushed harder as it got worse. I do need to figure out why that happened though. I’ve had stomach issues intermittently before a few races the last six months. I haven’t changed anything about pre-race routines, from 5K to half-marathon, but had issues before the Philly 8K, Rehoboth Beach Half, and now Cherry Blossom. I don’t really get nervous before races, and I do the same thing because I am a creature of habit. If anyone has any thoughts I would love to hear them! I am considering trying oatmeal before my next race 10 miles or longer.

On another note, it is interesting that I ran the same time as last year but thought I was safely on track to run faster. I watched my splits and they indicated I was good, but I forgot my watch was slowly recording additional distance and said I ran 10.08. I 100% trust that the RRCA 10 Mile National Championship course was expertly measured, GPS’s are notorious for measuring extra distance, and I probably didn’t run the tangents. Had I not had the watch, doubt I would have run faster due to the stomach pain. The watch was a blessing to help push me to stay on pace, and a curse for the false comfort.

-Shaina