I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb

Here's the recap of yesterday's Cherry Tree 10 miler. I've done this race before and it's a great event, but man has it grown over the years! And gotten very competitive. The first time Loren and I did it, it was as a relay. I don't even remember what year it was. It was a small field, made up mostly of people doing the relay. We won the women's division. There were maybe 5 women's teams. There's also the option of doing the entire 10 miles solo, what they call the "race of the hardcore". The race is 3 loops of Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I tried to find a better elevation map, but this will have to do. You get the idea of the hills. They're not terrible, but ya know, they're there.
This year's race saw a pretty big field (106 relay teams, 3 to a team) and 802 "hardcore" 10 milers. There were some fast times as well-first male 53:53 and the first female 1:00:05.
Yea, I was no where near that.
My goals for this race were to run strong and PR. I was planning on perhaps 7:45 as a pace. Just an FYI from my last post, I went with my DS trainers. I had only done 1 run in my Mirages and only 4 miles. I didn't think that was enough to go out and race a 10 miler with.
Here are the splits:
1 7:29
2 8:09
3 7:36
4 7:22
5 7:51
6 7:57
7 7:33
8 7:54
9 8:10
10 7:28
Total 1:17:35 (just about 7:45 pace)
PR of close to 2 minutes.
Can you guess where the hills where?
This race has a tricky start. It's very easy to go out way too fast because it starts on a big down hill and everyone starts together. I didn't want to get sucked into running as fast as the relay people or blowing down the downhill. I noticed I was doing a bit of both so I eased up a bit. I also knew the hill would becoming before the end of mile 2 so I wanted to be in a nice rhythm by then.
I fell into step with someone where the familiar Front Runner jersey and we ran together. I'm embarrassed to admit it took me about a mile to realize I actually knew this person, Michael. We ran together, mostly in silence. I'd call out the splits every mile and if I'd lag, he'd look back to make sure I was staying with him. I felt like I was running an even effort, perhaps picking it up on the downhills.
One cool thing about running the whole 10 miles is you pass the transition area twice. Each time, the energy level is really high as runners head in for the hand off and the next wave starts with a huge burst of energy. The 2nd time around, I said to Michael if sounded as if we were being chased by a stampede. the sound of oncoming footsteps was so loud.
One more time up the hill, then it's pretty much down hill to the finish, but the way the park curves, it feels like a looooong mile. I just focused on pushing and glanced at my watch to see where I was. Under 1:18 was pretty much in the bag, and I was happy about that. Michael and I crossed the line together.


(thanks to Dave for the photo!)
Oh yea, this was also my first race as a master and was good enough for 3rd place in my new AG.
In other news, this was Loren's first 10 miler. I swear, she sandbags even when she doesn't mean to. She never expects to run as fast as she does. Just pin a number on her and off she goes. She ran 1:09:11 (6:55 pace) and won her AG by a minute. I have to enjoy these few months I have until she joins me in the 40s.