Syttende Mai 20 mile 10 mile run

Around the beginning of May, I signed up for the Syttende Mai 20 mile run.  This was before I had run the marathon, and I was ambitious.  There weren't many runs in general that are 20 milers, and I didn't really want to miss it.

But a week after the marathon, I was doubting it.  On a five mile run, something went wonky and my knee was giving me some issues.  Nothing serious, per se, but I noticed it when I had been sitting for a long time and put pressure on the kneecap by crossing my legs.  I started to rethink my choices.

Button to get into festival events.

Come Friday, I email the Stoughton Chamber of Commerce and ask to downgrade to the 10 mile run.  It took me a while to make that decision.  It was hard to determine if the reluctance to take on the 20 mile run was out of deference to the limits of my body and possible injuries or if it was a lack of faith and willingness to take on difficult tasks.  Ultimately, what convinced me was logistics.

The 20 mile and 10 mile run are both point to point.  The 20 mile run starts at the Capitol in Madison and ends in downtown Stoughton.  The 10 mile run starts at the midway point and has the same course.  There's also an untimed 17 mile walk that starts at the Badger Bowl.  The runs and the walk are both part of the Syttende Mai (Seventeenth of May in Norwegian) festival in Stoughton.  There are shuttles before and after the race that runs from Stoughton to Madison.  Since my friend Barry was running the 10 miler, I figured logistically, it'd make more sense to stick with him.

Barry and I got to Stoughton around 6:45am and hopped on the shuttle.  The 10 mile run starts at 8am and the 20 mile run at 7:30am.  The last shuttle from Stoughton was at 7am, which was the one Barry and I were on.  We got to the start line shortly after 7am.  I'd already been awake for about 2 hours now and I was feeling hungry.  Luckily, I had sport beans tucked away in a running jacket that I had brought with.  Switching from the 20 mile to the 10 mile was also super easy.  They had a new bib printed up for me and waiting at the start line.  I was quite impressed and happy with the ease of it all.

It was about 60 at the start and predicted to get to 85 by midday.  I was a bit chilly at the start and it took me longer than I expected to warm up.  Once I did, though, I warmed up very quickly.  I wasn't particularly feeling it today.  Barry took off immediately, and I didn't see him again until the end.  I kept a slow and steady pace and treated it more like a training run than a race.  There were 4 aid stations on the course with gatorade and water.  I walked through every single one.  I started with just water and then started to take both gatorade and water by the third aid station.

The course was hilly, but not terribly.  They were mostly rolling hills, but let's be honest, just because the total change in elevation of a course is zero does not mean that it's the same as running on a flat course.  Too much energy is lost in the downhill and not to mention the impacts on my knee.  I would much prefer a gentle incline over a long stretch than the shorter but steeper up and downs.  I started to feel my knee around mile 4, and then around mile 7, my foot started to feel some pain.  I might have started walking at this point if I were in the 20 mile race, but for a 10 mile race with 3 miles to go, I just kept going and tried to land differently on my foot.

The course finishes through downtown Stoughton.

For the first part of the course, we're going through farmlands and it's difficult to gauge distance.  It felt like the first part went quickly just because I couldn't gauge how far I'd run without a watch and I'd see all the even mile markers but none of the odd ones.  It felt like 2 miles go by at a time.  Before I knew it, I was at mile 6, with 4 to go.  The organizers did a very good job with trafficking the course.  Despite sharing the road with cars and other vehicles and crossing more than a couple of intersections, I never felt like I had to slow my pace for them.  The last part of the course goes through downtown Stoughton.  I finished with a time for 1:35:19 for a 9:31 min/mi pace.

Afterwards, Barry, Justine, and I wandered through the Syttende Mai festival, looking at some rose-mailing and quilting exhibits, while enjoying Swedish meatballs, pastries, and lingonberry lefsa.  We also watched some of the 20 milers finish.

Rose-mailing exhibit.

Same left foot issue.

I had hoped that with the training for the marathon, I'd set a PR for the 10 mile, and it's somewhat disheartening to think that despite training for a marathon, I was still running at the same pace as my very first race.  But it's perhaps unfair to compare the Black Earth 10 mile last year to this race.  The courses are different, and I was injury free and running my very first race at Black Earth.

The knee and foot injury have been dancing closely to being full blown injuries all spring.  They're giving me issues immediately after a run, but a 2-3 days later and I feel fine.  Saturday afternoon and yesterday, the foot bothered me significantly, but today it feels fine.  It's because of this cycle that I return to running probably much sooner than I should.  What's also annoying about both injuries is that it's the same left foot that gave me issues for the Madison Mini-Marathon last year and the same left knee.  This makes me think I'm doing something wrong, i.e. terrible running form that puts more stress on the left side of my body than the right.  I think I'll skip running for 1-2 weeks, let everything heal and then try to work on my form.  Meanwhile, I'll utilize the opportunity to get on my bike.