I haven't put anything up here in a while and am long overdue for an update because of a couple things.
First of all, I scheduled a pretty busy spring racing schedule for about 4-5 weeks racing nearly every weekend. My broad outline was to schedule two big 10 milers (Cherry Blossom and Broad Street) a month apart, being the first weekend of April and May respectively, and fill in the rest of the schedule with money races from there.
I caught the injury bug in mid-March after resuming hard training post-OT. I suspect that it was due to jumping into hard hill work, both up and down hills, that aggravated some tendinitis in my left foot. I was nervous about this because it hurt over the navicular, but after getting it examined it was determined to likely be soft tissue inflammation. Translation: train through it, ice and advil. I am still dealing with this, albeit in a controlled and slowly improving manner. It did however take me out for about a week, some of which was spent watching March Madness on the bike trainer.
After getting over that scare and back into trainers (and flats), I was hoping for a good run at Cherry Blossom. Coming up to the race, the weather was forecasted to be very bad for fast times, with temps in the mid-30s and high winds.
Before I discuss the race specifically, I do want to talk about the elite treatment, hospitality and accommodations. If you ever get a chance to run in the elite field at this race, DO IT. It was a phenomenal experience. The hotel was top-notch, the hospitality suite was open nearly all the time for food, drinks, whatever. All meals were comped. The staff was wonderful, very nice and seemed to really enjoy their jobs. Honestly coming off of the OT experience where the USATF staff treated us relatively badly, it was a real breath of fresh air. Emily was able to stay with me as a guest, and we made some new friends on the trip, which of course is one thing we all love about our sport.
Back to the race. The weather was actually not as terrible as it was forecasted to be. In the technical meeting the day before, the race director had taken cautious measures and removed most things on the course that could potentially turn into wind-borne missiles. Mile markers, most tents and the entire awards ceremony were removed and everyone was encouraged to finish the race and get out as soon as possible to keep problems to a minimum. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely windy, but no 50 mph gusts or 30 mph sustained winds as the predictions showed.
The start was conservative as people were worried about the wind. For about 2 miles I hung on the back of the lead group. Going over the Potomac bridge into Virginia, we were jogging along into the wind because no one up front wanted to sacrifice themselves. Suddenly someone got impatient and broke up the field. After that everyone split up into smaller groups. I linked up with a couple guys, one of whom I would run the rest of the race with.
The wind was intermittently a head and tail wind, but I think it was pretty fair out on the course. By that I mean it didn't seem like it was disproportionately a headwind, although the last 2 miles straight into it were pretty tough. I had grouped myself with 3 others by the time we turned into that so we took turns blocking it up the last stretch. My one tactical blunder was to try and break the group I was with with a mile to go with a hard surge. I ended up breaking myself and getting beat by one of the guys I was with, but was able to outkick another for 15th overall and (I believe) 8th American. This gave me the pleasant surprise of making $300, before taxes of course. Time didn't matter much to me on this day, but I ran 51:18 for the record and believe the time could have been somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes faster depending on the level of drafting being done.
Overall I had a good experience at this race, obviously colored by the excellent elite treatment, and would love to come back again. On a still-air day at 40 degrees this course is one of the world's fastest and a great place to PR for the distance.
