Race Write-up: The Army 10-Miler

I completed this race in October and am just now writing about it. Life happens, but I want to let everyone know about the milestone I passed in this race: I ran about 9.25 miles without walking. Well, I like to qualify that by saying I did have one shoe coming untied incident and one attempt to walk, but I got about two or three steps into walking and realized that if I continued, I wouldn’t be able to finish the race running.

Finisher medal (yay!).

But first things first.

Race Preparation

I did some decent training for this. I loosely followed an adapted half marathon training schedule, but ultimately was only able to get up to around 5 miles for my longest training run. I was definitely worried that this would not be adequate training though I felt confident I would finish the race.

It did, however, force me to adjust how I would plan to run the race. Typically, my goal is to finish a race without walking. This may seem like a silly goal for most athletes, but as a weak runner - and clearly far better swimmer, hyuk hyuk – finishing a race or a longer distance without walking is a huge accomplishment. This time I felt I needed to adjust that goal and plan out walk breaks. I made a mental challenge to make it to 5 miles, the longest I had gone prior to this race, without walking.

The race also posed the unique challenge of not being allowed to carry a cell phone (which we found out when we got there that this was not the case) and that we would need to metro in without having access to our car both before and directly after the race. For someone with asthma, this means I need to make sure I wear pants with pockets that I can put my inhaler into. And getting separated from my husband in the sea of over 30,000 runners was a major concern. So I also planned to stick with him and we would both adjust pace as necessary.

One note about this race related to preparation: I hate pre-race day packet picket. Most of these large races have it and I know it makes things run smoother, but frankly, it is frustrating to have to go into DC the day before. For those unfamiliar with DC, parking is a nightmare and trying to park where and when you know a lot of other people will be parking is a giant, magnificent, horrible nightmare. It just reinforces my despise of big races.

At the Race
Talk about a boatload of people. Getting into the race was terrible. Since it starts near the Pentagon, everyone had to go through a security checkpoint with our hands raised. It was uncomfortably cramped and the line moved very, very slowly. And I almost did not bother waiting in the porta-potty line because it was so long and I was worried I would miss my wave start. Fortunately, I did not, but that added stress was unnecessary before a race. More porta-johns for that many people makes sense.

The start of the race was rather hilarious. Less than a mile into it, there were sweatshirts thrown everywhere from people peeling off all their cold-weather clothes (a spectacle that I wish did not happen due to littering and clean-up concerns). Around the same point both my husband and my shoes came untied so we have to quickly move to the right through a sea of people to re-tie. But our pace quickly recovers.

Unfortunately, much of the race was pretty typical and not memorable, but after the five mile point, where I originally had planned to walk, I got a second wind and decided to keep going.

Ok, I’ll try to make it to six.

Six miles came, but my husband got a crippling side stitch and needed to walk. I asked if we could separate because I was having a great race and he agreed.

Ok, body, just make it to 8 miles and you can walk. At 8 miles, I was feeling fatigued. My legs were sore and I was coming up on a long stretch that took runners onto I-395 for a portion. Running on a shut down highway is pretty badass, but it also was the first part of the race that I really could see far ahead of me. I could see the Pentagon, the race finish.  And I could also see that it was still a ways off. I got the urge to walk so I took a few steps without running. Instantly I felt my legs tighten up and my first thought was “If I walk now, I won’t be able to run again so I better just keep running.”

My race results.

I tried to focus on things other than the pain and soon I was passing the mile to go mark. You’ve come this far, don’t stop now. I was determined to finish this race without walking. But shortly, I felt a pain in my side, likely psychosomatic rather than pure muscle fatigue. The pain worsened with each bounce of my foot on the pavement. I had to stop. I forced myself to walk. It felt like it took about 10 minutes to walk 100 yards, but the side stitch evaporated and I started running again.

Half mile.

Quarter mile.

Like most grueling races, I finished by closing my eyes and opening them for the last 50 feet or so. I kept my pace.

Finish line.

After the Race

I was not allowed to wait for my husband at the finish line. I had to keep walking. About a quarter mile more of walking to get to the medal pick-up where I thought we could reconnect. It was difficult to find him, which would have been made easier had we selected a meet-up spot prior to the race, but I feel the difficulty was exacerbated by their insistence we leave the race finish area even though we were not blocking anyone by waiting on the sidelines near the fence. And the fact that we were not allowed to carry cell phones. How silly!

The kicker in this race was their poor advertising of shuttles and the lack of awareness that it was nearly a mile hike back to the metro around the pentagon. We were both nauseated the entire walk back and regretted not braving the long lines for a banana.

I have no race pictures because of their stupid no camera policy. I was also unwilling to pay usurer fees for official pictures.

Though I will say this race was one of the best races I have finished from a person goal standpoint. All the downsides mean I will likely not do it again (plus I need to really start planning races in other states before re-running ones) but I highly recommend this race to others as an alternative to skipping right to the half marathon.