Cajun Cup 10K - Run10k

Really, I run only two 10Ks a year, Cajun Cup and Crescent City Classic. Lately I've been running these as part of my long runs with my perpetual marathon training, It's been two years since I *raced* a 10K, so I had only a vague idea of what I could/should do. My PR was set here in 2003 at 48:31, so I figured I'd shoot for a sub-50 and see what happened. Problem was, I didn't do the pre-race math to see what a sub-50 pace equalled, so I pretty much just ran this one by feel.

Started back with Haley and Bill who were going to "loaf" the course, ended up having to wind my way through slower runners for the first 1/2 mile or so. Finally got in a groove where I could run forward instead of side-to-side, found a pace that would just hold the diaphragm stitch in abeyance.

Running through the subdivision off of Johnson I saw Dr. Nix about 50 feet ahead of me. Doc is part of our Wednesday cycking group, and a good runner, so I settled in there and maintained that gap behind him. Every time I tried to close, the diaphragm would start to stitch, so it turned out he was a good pace for me, except that he he faded at Mile 5.

When we turned north on Congress, the wind hit us head on and you could immediately see your pace drop. Felt the wind hard for most of Mile Four (see splits) then we got into the trees in the Saints Streets area and it wasn't so bad.

Toward the end I passed maybe half a dozen people, turned out one of them was my MUCH YOUNGER coworker Eric, he said he tried to catch me back down the stretch but came up a little short, two seconds behind me. I flat-out sprinted the whole length of Jefferson Street, which was about the last half-mile of the course.

Here are the splits per Garmin. Laps were right on the mile markers until Mile 4, which looked to be 1/10 of a mile long as marked on the course. Subsequent miles were consisitent with that, so I'm saying the whole course was 9/100s long, and that extra distance is in the last segment of the race (.29 instead of .2):

Mile Time
1 7:35
2 7:25
3 7:17
4 7:42
5 7:32
6 7:15
0.29 1:47 (6:14 pace!)

Ended up PRing by over two minutes!



Nothing. This was a pretty good effort.

Jogged on to the park to get water and some oranges, then jogged back and waited (and waited, and waited ;)) for Haley and Bill to finish.


Genetics? Gotta keep pushing the envelope...


Always a great event, this is the largest local running event, a shame they can't get more than 600 participants in a community of 100,000 people with 1 million people living within an hour's drive. Good course, great weather, excellent party afterward with jambalaya, free beer, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys providing musical entertainment. Of course it was made more pleasurable that fellow BTers, Bill & Haley the Comet were rocking around the clock, or at least having good fun.