
Date: March 29th, 2024
Race: Washington University Distance Carnival
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
One of my goals this year was to run more races.
More specifically, my goal was to run more local races.
I've found it easy to avoid racing, especially when I lived in Arizona where you had to travel to get to a competitive event on the road. In Flagstaff, road races hardly exist!
Since moving to St. Louis I've made it a goal to join in on the local racing scene.
It's fun. It's casual. And it doesn't cost a ton of money.
I signed up for a 10km track meet at Washington University in St. Louis a month back to put myself through a stress that my body hasn't experienced in a long time.
I know it sounds silly to put it like that, but there's a lot of value in pushing your outer limits and doing hard things that scare you.
I haven't finished a 10km track race since 2016.
I've had a mental block when it comes to this race distance. On occasion, I run out of my mind, but every time I had that breakthrough race, I had 2 races where I mentally crashed and burned.
My mind becomes fragile on the track. This is something I'd like to put to rest. I needed to face my fear of the 10km and just do it!
What better way to do that than sign up for a track race and throw myself into the fire!
Pre Race
My race didn't kick off until 10 p.m. so I had plenty of time to relax all day. I ran an easy 2 miles in the morning to shake out the legs (something I like to do before night races) and to de-stress the system. Then, I spent the rest of the day writing schedules for my athletes and took a couple of afternoon phone calls.
I headed over to the venue around 7 p.m. Megan and I watched a few races before I took off for my warm-up (45 minutes before the race) which consisted of 18ish minutes of very easy running (7:30-8:00 pace) followed by a series of drills and 4 100m strides at race effort. My body didn't feel terrible at this point which came to me as a surprise. Usually, my legs feel bad prior to racing but I would say they felt neutral. Another positive was that my mind seemed as though it was in a healthy place. I was nervous, but appropriately so.
The Early Miles
I didn't roll into this race with a ton of confidence if I'm being honest. I didn't know what to expect and I wasn't in the headspace to be very aggressive. I wanted to give myself the best chance of staying mentally strong and persevering through the hard miles that make you question life itself.
So, in the early part of the race I didn't push myself into the front, I was positioned in the back 1/4 of the field. I didn't feel particularly great as we passed through mile one in the 4:56 range.
Honestly, I would've loved that number to be faster, but that's what I had on the day.
From miles 1-3 I was not in a good place. I started letting doubt creep in and other intrusive thoughts that in no way were going to help my situation. I hate that my mind goes to these places. I'm continually working to convince myself that I'm okay under this kind of stress.
There was a lot of surging during the early part of the race to either get up to a pack of runners or to get around other runners who were already slowing down after the initial laps. One positive part of the surging is that every time I made a surge, my body welcomed it and found it easy to settle back into a rhythm afterward - meaning I wasn't draining my battery.
The Middle Miles
I crossed 5000m around 15:20-15:25. I was mildly disappointed that I wasn't closer to 15:00 but I wasn't out of it. I know better than to let the time on the clock swallow me up. I was determined to make the most out of the day no matter the pace. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
I crossed a mental barrier somewhere between the 3-4 miles point. I realized that I WAS okay. While the pace felt tough, I was going to be just fine. I started feeling better and got a spark of confidence I didn't previously have. Huge win!
At this point in the race, I was sitting close to 20th place, around 100m off the leader but in touch with packs of runners.
The Closing Miles
From 4 miles on I was on a mission. I made it my goal to pass at least one runner every lap. I paid no attention to the pace or the time on the clock (you shouldn't unless you're time-trialing) and just focused on the race itself.
I consistently moved up every lap, picking off at least one runner, often more!
Looking over my splits, I wasn't running much faster than my previous laps, but I was running faster than just about everyone else in the race! You can imagine what this does for your confidence as you're close to the finish.

With 3 laps to go, I began thinking that I had a shot at winning the race. While I was still 10 seconds behind the lead, there was a thought in my head that I could lay down a huge final 1000m and take the win.
My only regret is that I didn't take that chance. I settled too much and saved too much.
My final 400m was 65 seconds, a great finishing lap, one that moved me up several positions, ultimately finishing 4th, just a half second off of 3rd, and 5-6 seconds of the leader.
I finished in a time of 30:39 - basically even splitting the first and second halves of the race with a great closing kick. Officially this was my second-best track 10km ever. I ran 29:39 in 2015.

Closing thoughts
I'm very proud of myself for hanging in there and wading through the mentally toughest part of the race which was between 2-3 miles. If I just hang in there, it does get easier. I need to continue reminding myself of this for future races.
I gave the race the respect it deserved. By this I mean I let myself be nervous, I didn't deny or suppress those feelings. If I was going to really go for it, I needed to elevate the meaning of the race.
I need to have more confidence and be willing to be aggressive. There's a scenario where I ran with the leaders and I didn't have to make up such a huge deficit which put me in a better position to win.
I wish I could fit another track 10km in this spring! My training is just getting started and I truly believe that If I had a few more months and some specific work around 5-10km I could rewrite my 10km PR from 2016.
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