Race Recap: 2017 Spring Thaw 10 Miler

For the past 2 years, I have looked forward to running this race. This year that wasn’t the case. I was coming off my 9 days on the cruise ship and hadn’t been running long much before race day. At one point I had actually toyed around with the idea of running the 15 miler but I was glad I didn’t sign up for that because I felt that I could barely do the 10 miler. To say that I was driving the struggle bus was an understatement for this race.

For the first time since adding The Spring Thaw to my race schedule, it actually felt like spring outside. Two years ago, it was a real feel of below zero for the race start. Last year it was somewhere in the teens I think. This year? It was 45-50 degrees at the start. The race has a start time of 10am which I am not a huge fan of, but in this case it allowed some rain clear from the area before we got to the start line. It was certainly nice to wear shorts though for this race as a change from all of my fleece lined gear. Last minute I threw on my lightweight rain jacket and was glad I did. It ended up being windy out there at times and was nice to have.

Hanging out at the start line a few of us thought back that this was the race where so many of us had met for the first time in real life. So many of those encounters have lead to amazing friendships. It’s fun to be able to look back to remember that time when you first met so many of the people you only once knew through a twitter handle, an Instagram name or from their blog.

The plan for this race was to try and hit 11:45 pace. I wanted to do my run/walk ratio, but I kind of got caught up for the first 3.5 miles before I went to it. I definitely paid for it because based on all of my mile splits, I went out to fast. As soon as I switched over to the run/walk, I slipped down to a 12:03 and 12:14 mile. I knew I should have just started it from the beginning, but running with some others was much more fun at the time. With one of the first walk breaks I took, one of the ladies I was running with asked if I was okay. My honest response to her was that I was just wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t want to be there and I still had just over 6 miles to go.

I ended up finishing loop one in 58:55, which was a little slower than I wanted, but still on target. For the most part of the second lap I was running by myself. I was thinking of everything that I could to distract me from actually thinking about the race itself for most of that second lap. Much of my performance of this race was certainly mental since I had no motivation. Through miles 7-8 though I was thinking if I could hit the same lap time for that second lap as the first, I’d be under 2 hours and all things considering, would probably be the best I could do.

I pushed for those last 2 miles to get under 2 hours and it showed. Mile 8 came in at 12:01 followed by an 11:32 for mile 9 and surprisingly my fastest mile and only one sub 11 for the last mile, coming in at 10:57. While the second lap wasn’t faster, I finished in 59:08. Considering this was a full loop at my run/walk, I wasn’t too disappointed in the final time coming in just under 2 hours. After cheering some others into the finish, a few of us headed back to the Rose Barn where they were starting to do awards and had some amazing soup out for post run food options. I was happy to have the warm cup of chicken noodle soup.

Overall, this was certainly my worst showing at the Spring Thaw, but it helped confirm that I did make the right decision to pull from my spring marathon. I guess this was just the race I needed in that respect. Not all races have the outcome you think you’ll get and this was one for me. Maybe next year, I’ll be able to get some redemption on this race because honestly, the 10 miler is one of my favorite distances.

Official Finish Time: 
1:58:03, 11:49/mile
371/420, Overall
171/212, Females
36/44, F 30-34