Flatwoods Ramble 10 mile - Run10 Mile

I may need to revise my strategy for races like this one. In this case, the main thing I was concerned about was not to go out too fast. In some of my long runs I have noticed that a steady pace is way better than going out fast and then having to slow down significantly in the last few miles. given that the first half mile was on asphalt, my 9:11 for the first mile was dead on perfect. The strategy seems to have been flawed though, since when we hit the single track, I realized that pretty much everyone goes out at a pace they can't sustain, so now I am stuck behind slower people. Passing in these trails is not easy and on top of that it is dangerous. I had to deal with traffic on that second mile, and thus slowed down considerably. Having to deal with traffic during a good part of the race, might also be the reason why I ended up running an extra 0.15 miles.

The rest of the race went pretty smoothly, I felt well throughout the event, and I realized that in that sense, the pacing strategy worked great. I saw many people suffering in the past 2-3 miles. Once I got to the point at which there was one mile left, I kicked it up a bit and with 0.5 miles to go a woman run up to me. I was near the top of what I could give, so I moved slightly to the side and signaled to her that she could pass. The response was "No way, you were ahead of me the whole race, kick it up, let's go!". This race for me was training more than anything, but I thought to myself, OK, I'll try to keep up with her, so I sped up and she started pulling me along. The moment I would slow down a little, she would egg me on. My heart rate at this point was at 98% of max, so I did not have much more to give. When we saw the finish line she was 15 feet in front of me, but she waited, we grabbed hands and crossed together (I step slightly behind, so she would get the finisher spot ahead of me). Thank you to Judy for pushing me and making me give it everything I had in that last 1/2 mile.

After finishing I met with my wife, daughter and dad who were there with me, watched the awards and headed home.

Maybe try to go out faster until hitting the single trails, that way, I would not have to deal with so much traffic.

Walked around a little bit, grabbed some Gatorade, corn bread and a couple of cookies. Then when I got home I took a long hot shower and afterwards did some deep stretching.


In part traffic, in part the fact that I did not want this race to affect my training in the following days, so except for the last 1/2 mile, I did not go as fast as I could. Don't get me wrong, I was not going slow for me either. If I was racing as hard as I could, maybe I could go 15-20 secs per mile faster on average. Not much faster than that.


Nice race, with the typical format of Tamparaces. Everything was on time, we got a nice t-shirt and it was a relaxed atmosphere, with friendly people. I expected a little more from the advertised waffle breakfast, but it was OK.