Race Report: Ajax Run the Lake 10k

Course was pretty much what I'd figured - hilly and stiff cold winds.

My Race

Result was pretty much what I'd figured - 42:42 (although course might have been ~200m short per my GPS?) and around a 4:20/km pace.  Good enough for 5th overall and 4th of the guys.

Had a fun little race with one other guy.  I was by myself up to about the 7km mark, then I noticed I was gaining on someone.  We hit the final turn-around at 7.5km and he saw me... then it was on!

A bunch of rolling hills sat between us and the finish.  I seemed to close the gap on the way up... and down.  This was going to be easy!  But then he'd open it up again when we'd hit a flat.  And so it went until the very last hill when finally I caught and passed him on the descent.

... but there was still 500m to go.  I could hear his footfalls behind me.  I tried to fire up the pace to break his spirit, but he matched me step for step.  I was now under my 5k race pace, into the sub-4:00/km pace zone, which I knew I couldn't hold for long... and he was matching me.  I really needed him to hit his wall!

As the finish came into view, I could hear him start up a finishing kick.  I tried to respond but that took me into a total blow up zone - he breezed by and took it by a few seconds.

So I lost this one - but man was it fun!  And really drove me to finish hard, which was exactly what I needed.

My Whining

The course markings were really off... like waaaaaay off.  The 5km sign was at 4km!  I had no idea how long this race was going to actually be - were the signs where the organizers actually thought 5km was?  If so, was it going to be 1km short?  2km?  Or was the distance right but the signs wrong?

In the end the distance seems to only have been off by about 200m, which is close enough it could have been right and my GPS off a little.  But still - really inexcusable in this day and age to be so wildly off on the kilometer markings - when they're that wrong, it's better to not have them at all.

Anyway, it's a local community fundraiser race, not the NYC marathon, so I won't hold them to toooo high a standard... just irks me.