I entered the Snoqualmie 10k near Seattle on the morning of the race this past weekend. I had been concerned about fatigue from my journey to Thailand, Singapore, Tokyo and Seattle over the previous 7 days. But the course is scenic and flat and fast, and the race serves as the Pacific Northwest 10k road run championship -- so lots of fast runners from the Club Northwest team I occasionally run with in Seattle are participating.
Conditions are almost perfect, sunshine and 14 degrees Celsius. What, twenty degrees cooler than what I would have faced at Aiz I am actually a bit cold during the first mile. But after the weather in Tokyo... well, I don't need to bother explaining how wonderful it felt to me to run in these cool, crisp conditions.
In an effort to maintain a reasonably pace I run with a Club NW team member, Susan, for the first mile, and as expected she paces me to ideal 5:46 first mile. (Yeah in America even though the race distance is in kilometers they give splits in miles..) After the first mile I pickup the pace and abandon Susan and catch up with another Club Northwest woman, Claudia, who is the eventual winner of the woman's division. I feel surprisingly fast and relaxed and am delighted with my 5k split of 17:34.
My goal was to break 36 minutes, something I have not done is at least 5 years. So I push myself to hang on and maintain the pace over the last 5k. I am all by myself for the last 4k and feel I am slowing down. Thus I am a bit surprised (and happy) to see my finishing time of 35:20. I finish 3rd in 45-49 division, and 19th overall.
For the Seattle runners this August race represents the latter part of their running season, and many of them peak for this event. I am not at all sure anymore when my "running season" starts or ends, but August would really be my off-season to the extent that I have an off-season.
