Santa Fe Trail Run 10k Race Report

I had originally planned to run a different 10k race on Labor Day down on the south side of Santa Fe. But a few weeks ago I was browsing an online race schedule (can't remember which one) and saw this race listed. My immediate thought was, "cool, there's a trail race I can do". Well it turns out the race is named what it is not because it takes place on a trail, but because it takes place on the road named Old Santa Fe Trail. OK, I get it now. However, it still had the advantage that the start and finish lines are (literally) two miles from my house, rather than a 30 minute drive across town. The course starts on Old Santa Fe Trail near the New Mexico capital building, heads south and a little bit east for three miles, then turns around and comes back. The first mile and a third or so gently climb about 250 feet up and from there is slightly rolling out to the turn-around. Not much to it. This also was the inaugural edition of the race.


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(Approximate race route)

My goal heading into this was to use it as a tempo workout and a gauge of my fitness. Based on some recent speedwork I thought I should be able to run better than 8 min/mile but beyond that I really had no idea since this was only my second road race (and third race ever). And to top things off my legs still felt a little sluggish from a 17 mile trail run two days prior. I ran the two miles from my house down to the starting area, which loosened me up nicely, then ate a gel, hung out for ten or fifteen minutes, lined up, and we were off.

At the first mile marker I looked at my watch and saw right around 8 minutes. My first thought was, WTF, there's no way 8 min/mile should be this hard. My second thought was, oh yeah, you're going uphill. Once the road leveled out again I recovered a bit and then picked up the pace and went into the turnaround right around 23 minutes. From there I looked ahead and picked out a handful of runners I would try to pass on the return leg. I kept the pace hard but controlled through mile 4, knowing that there was a short climb just before mile 5. I went hard on the hill and passed a few more people before crossing mile 5 and starting the descent toward the finish. I was able to push pretty good on the descent and passed one more person with about half a mile to go before crossing the line with a time of 44:32, about a 7:10 pace and a negative split by about a minute and a half. I ended up 12th overall (out of 102), but still 10-12 minutes behind the speedsters. Needless to say I was pretty pleased with my time. The real benefit for me though was all the mental lessons: getting a feel for what my limits are; learning to sense how my body is performing and what adjustments I need to make on the fly; and building the confidence to tell myself, yes this is hard, but you can push through it.

My wife and son drove down to catch the finish and she caught a picture of me coming down the stretch:



(Me about to cross the line, with the blinding white flash of my thighs in full effect) 

Overall the race was well organized and well coordinated with the city. I certainly didn't have any complaints, and the close proximity to my house is nice. The finish area was well-stocked with bagels, fruit, granola bars, water, and coffee. I hope this race continues next year. And now I have an official road 10k PR.



(Not the nicest race shirt I've seen, but definitely not the worst)

ETA: I mentioned using this race as a way to gauge my fitness. In particular I wanted to use my performance here to help me set a realistic goal for the marathon I'm running in mid-October. I've tried about half a dozen "equivalent race time calculators" and all indicate that I should run about a 3:30 marathon (give or take five minutes). Of course they're all probably using the same or very similar formulas, which is why they all basically agree, but it is a bit of a confidence boost to see that all of these predictors point to what I would have considered a stretch goal for my first marathon... especially since the race will be at about 2000 feet lower elevation than what I'm used to running, and that right there should give me about 10-15 seconds per mile. It will be interesting to see how things work out.