Zillion Percent Humidity Racing (CAPITOL 10,000)

Ay-yi-yi!!! This is not subtle foreshadowing. Today, the weather was as bad as it usually gets for this race. About 75 degrees, which by itself isn't too awful, but the humidity was pegged at the top of the scale. It was darned near impossible to have your body do its normal cooling thing with evaporation, given the conditions. But, I digress...

The day started okay. No problem parking, and I found my way down to the appointed meeting place early. Took advantage of the nonexistent port-o-lines and did my pre-race work there, and then met up with the gang at the zero mile marker on the trail. We knocked out a super easy 2 miles, more or less, around 10:00/mile pace, and then drilled and strode. Properly warmed up, we sauntered over to the start line for some easy stretching, and then it was time to join the crowds waiting for the horn to go off. I lined up in the corral with Richard and Shannon. I was sipping water when I found it, and was ready to go, I thought. Took my pre-race Enervitene (I had one left over from the marathon), and it was time.

The national anthem was done by a woman who had the strangest inflection in her words...the singing was fine, but there were some strange twists in the sound of the lyrics. We had lined up in the front corral, but as usual there were lots of walkers who had somehow found their way up there as well. What are they thinking? At the horn, we surged forward, and finally we crossed the line about 40 seconds after the horn. Richard and Shannon scooted ahead, and Richard even said that he needed to get some early distance on me so that I wouldn't catch him later. Shannon is just faster than we are right now, so I wasn't planning on seeing her again. I might have a chance to run with Richard.

Some serious weaving through the crowd later, I passed by the first singing group, a guy playing a resonator guitar singing some bluesy number, and at the top of Congress Ave, we passed the second act, a rock group giving us some serious motivation. I missed the first mile marker in the crowds. I saw Richard up ahead about 40-50 yards, and just kept an eye on him. Stalker mode. So far, I felt okay, but it isn't an easy course. The course is different this year, so we had to go up the hill to the east of the Capitol, then down and back up on the north side of the Capitol on 15th Street. I was mostly trying to find my rhythm at this point. Up the north side of the Capitol, I started to close on Richard, and finally caught him right at the 2 mile mark on the rolling hills of Enfield. I grabbed a quick cup of water there and doused my head with another cup, and moved on. My two mile split wasn't what I had hoped, but if I ran my usual race, I'd be able to pick up the overall pace later. If.

Splits miles 1 and 2: 15:45 for two miles. I estimate splits of 7:55 and 7:50, because I ran harder in mile two trying to catch Richard.

Mile 3 has the big hill climb in it, on Enfield. I managed to get through that in fairly good fashion. Not working super crazy hard, but keeping up the pressure. I was trying now to keep Richard from catching me, where I was in my better element, the hills. He's faster than me on the flats, so I needed to get a gap in the rolling terrain. At the 3 mile mark, I grabbed another cup of water to douse my cap, and moved on. Along Winstead, we negotiated the last significant hill, and enjoyed a neighborhood band that traditionally plays for us during the race. I passed Volel during mile 4, but neither of us had the energy to say much to each other at that point. I was still hopeful of a reasonably decent time, depending on how mile 4 went. Down the hill to Veterans, and we were in the homestretch. By now, I wasn't having the most fun ever, but I tried to keep focused on the job at hand. The mile 4 marker came and went, and it was time to figure out what I was going to try to do for the rest of this thing.

Mile 3 and 4: 7:51, 7:39. I still had a shot at a masters PR, if I could pick it up just a tiny bit.

During mile 5, however, the wheels came off. The heat and humidity caught up with me, and I was reduced to a short walk through the water stops in that mile. Those water stop walks got longer and longer, and now I was worried that I was going to see Richard and a bunch of other people go by me at the end. I gamely moved along, with my legs feeling just fine, but my cooling system had shut down on me for the most part. Mile 5 was not great. It got a little worse during mile 6, and this is where I really fell apart. I guess it's all relative, but I was pretty grumpy along here. I did see Carla Varela and Frank's kids along the side of the road, but I don't think I did a great job of waving to them. The band at Lamar Street was great, but that's about the only fun thing in that stretch. Finally, the turn to the First Street bridge came, after seemingly eons waiting for it. Mile 6 split was awful, but now, I got picked up by the crowds for the last .21 miles, and did a reasonable job of sprinting to the tape. Thank God, it was over! Drenched, I caught my breath and moved towards the refreshments.

Splits miles 5-6.21: 8:00, 8:24, 1:26 (6:50 final sprint pace). Total 49:05, 7:54/mile average pace. I guess I'll take it, but it wasn't at all what I had thought myself capable of.

We quickly found all our friends hanging out past the finishing chute, and it seems the primary mood was relief that it was over. Most everyone had missed their target time by a minute or two, so I was among friends there. Gilbert's cousin, Bernard, actually overheated and crashed in the last couple of tenths of a mile on the course, while he was leading by several minutes. He did not finish. It was apparently pretty scary, but after several IV bags, he was coming around.

A few of us did a super easy mile cooldown trot, which helped to bring the legs back and bring the body temperature gently back to normal. We were all guzzling multiple water bottles. My clothes were totally drenched afterwards. Even my socks were heavy with water. Yuck. The best post-race snack were little boxes of orange juice which were frozen (whether intentionally or not, I don't know). If you ripped off the top of the carton, it was like eating an orange slush. Awesome!

Alex, Amy, Colleen, Joseph and I made the long walk back to the parking decks, and the day was done. I need to redeem myself after this one, but we all survived to run another day, so we should be thankful.