Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run Race Report

Willis Huang           33 Los Angeles CA       

Gun 1:08:52 Chip 1:07:59   6:48/mi pace 

Men-462/6618    AG-94/1266     

This past Sunday, I ran the famous Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run in Washington DC. I have been here for the past 3 weeks as part of a very educational radiology conference, and on the free weekends, I have managed to squeeze in 2 races, thanks to my friend Andy, who prodded me to sign up for these months ago.

The Cherry Blossom 10 miler is one of the most popular races in Washington DC. My friend Andy and I registered for this race online months ago - he was in DC and I was in LA, and we both simultaneously attempted to log on the second that the web registration opened. Despite our heroic early morning efforts (5AM my time!), it took an unholy 45 minutes of incessant mouse clicking due to people overwhelming the server. In fact, I was never able to register myself - my friend got lucky and managed to register both of us online. I never thought those millisecond delays across the national ethernet cables would make such a difference!

Andy and me, in the chilly pre-race dawn. I also am sporting a new Brooks jacket which I snagged half off at the expo. Neon  is great!

The race is a dead-flat 10 mile loop course around the Washington Mall, where the national monuments stand. The real bonus however, is that the race coincides with the blooming of the Cherry blossom trees, which only lasts for a few weeks, and is a beautiful sight to behold along the national monuments.

My preparation for this race was minimal, as I had just run the National Half Marathon 2 weeks prior, at a fastish but not extremely difficult pace. I probably ran 15-20 miles per week in between races, as I spent nearly 2 hours per day in the pool in an effort to fix my technique in the water. (Swim focus tri training.) Nevertheless, I knew that the 10 mile distance would be less of an issue in terms of leg fatigue as compared to the half marathon (or marathon - which would likely kill me now), so I was prepared to go out fast and hold on as long as I could.

Fancy new disposable RFID tag system in lieu of chip timing. Worked great

I was fortunately seeded into Corral #1, way up front past the slower crowd, so there wouldn't be any problems with a brisk start. Still, a good 300 or so people were lined up with me up front, and I was at the back of the corral, intending to run a small negative split if possible. The gun went off, and everyone took off, very fast, as usual.

I got my pace to about a 7 minute mile despite the significant crowding on the course. Fortunately, most people were moving very fast, and most people around me were actually moving faster than me. We got a good look at the lead pack of 8 Kenyans/Ethiopians who eventually dominated this race with ungodly 4:45/mi paces, as they hit the 2 mile turnaround nearly 4 minutes ahead of me this early in the race. Amazing.

Good crowds were present for this race, but I found that I was too focused on the task at hand to hi-five people. Running at your lactate threshold is pretty hard and takes a good deal of concentration. If you run too fast, you'll definitely burn out within a few miles or less, or suffer a big dropoff in pace by the end. If you run too slow, you'll penalize yourself significantly on a 10 mile race, as it's too short to make up lost time with a big negative split. I felt that I ran this race exactly as planned, and right to the edge of my current abilities. My legs started to act up about 8 miles into the race, which was expected, but held up long enough for me to go hard into the final mile and push into anaerobic threshold for the last half mile. I don't have pace data per mile, but I am fairly certain that I ran a small negative split, as I started with 7 minute miles, and then steadily dropped under this pace after each mile marker. 

Approaching the finish line

A note of advice to racers as well, especially those racing without Garmin GPS devices to help monitor distance: be aware of incorrectly placed mile markers. It seems like a trivial non-issue, as the final distance is invariably correct, but an errant mile marker can suddenly suck all the wind out of a good race, for the wrong reasons. I was nearly sidelined by an errant mile marker at mile 7, which was almost certainly placed long at mile 7.2. I had been feeling confident that my aggressive pacing was working out as planned prior to mile 7, but then I noted that per the mile markers, mile 7 took me nearly 45 seconds longer than I had been expecting to run. Actually, I wasn't using lap times, so I was just estimating my pace off a 7min/mile average, and I really only noted that I was suddenly behind my target pace, when my original plan was to ramp up the pace at this point to drop under 7min/mile. I was SO discouraged at that point, and even thought about dropping out of the race at that point! After all, I had just significantly pushed the pace due to the approaching final miles, yet my clock times were showing that I was likely far more fatigued than I perceived, and thus would almost likely crash out in the last 1-2 miles. Fortunately, I got to wallow in self-pity for only 2-3 minutes, before  I overhead a group of guys passing me saying that the last mile was long per their GPS, and that we'd likely have a "fast" mile coming up. Sure enough, my pace between miles 7-8 timed out at 6:00/mile, which was way faster than I knew was possible, so indeed, the marker was short. I'll be ready next time I race without my GPS to not get discouraged by errant mile markers.

All in all a successful day, especially given my limited training. I ran a 6:48/mile pace, which was a good deal faster than my realistic target of 6:52-6:55/mile. Of course, I just HAD to plug this result into the online Mcmillan Race Time Estimate Calculator, which showed that this performance today was in line with a 1:30 half marathon (versus my 1:32:xx 2 weeks ago), and a 3:10 marathon. Of course, I am under NO illusion that I could put up a 3:10 marathon now - without the 20+ milers under the belt, there would be no way I could maintain that pace for more than 15 miles. The last 2 races clearly demonstrated to me that despite my decent leg speed, my leg endurance has definitely been limited due to the lower mileage triathlon run training. The upshot is, that I managed to finish in the top 7% of my AG field, and in flat-type or net downhill marathons, finishing in the top 7% is generally fast enough for a BQ. I will definitely be taking another crack at the BQ next year after a dedicated marathon training season, but this year is triathlon year. 

This race was also good for me in that it has been the first race since my stress fracture where I felt that I was able to put up a true race effort as well as a race time that seems to demonstrate where my ability is at the moment. Despite the big dropoff in speed compared to my race results last year at much higher mileage training, I am very happy with my last 2 race results, given the intervening stress fracture and low-mileage training I have been doing. For the first time, I'm becoming optimistic that triathlon-type training may indeed keep me in good form for even pure running races, and I think I may be able to even improve a fair amount from my current shape in the upcoming year.

I will be trying to go to a swim focus training in an effort to get into open-water shape for late summer races. This will take a LOT of work, and I am prepared to sacrifice significant amounts of run and bike performance to boost my swim. For sure, I am currently a back of the pack swimmer, if even that, and this means that until I can get to middle of the pack type performances, I need to really devote most of my time to becoming faster in the water.

Last note - I've finally gotten back to LA after this 4 week educational conference in DC. I loved the flexible schedule with no real responsibilities, but it sure is nice to get back to sunny dry SoCal, as it rained nearly every other day while I was in DC.  

Post-race at the White House