A week from this past Saturday we loaded the kids in the car at 7:00 and drove out to the shadows of the Shenandoah Mountains on a cool misty morning for one of my favorite races. This marks the 3rd year in a row that I have run the Fodderstack 10K race from Flint Hill, VA to Washington, VA. A couple of my coworkers, Paxton and John, have been doing this race even longer and they got me to come along in 2015 and I’m glad I did! The race itself is on a beautiful, but very tough, course up and down hills out in the foothills of the Shenandoah. It is a great challenge, but very rewarding. The weather this year was very similar to last year, with temperatures in the low 50s and a light on and off drizzle as I warmed up for the race.
The Fodderstack 10k is still the only 10K I have ever raced, so my time from last year (45:48) was my PR going into the race. I felt I had a bit stronger base underneath me this year compared to last year, so I set two goals for myself for this race: A – Under 45:00, B – Set my PR.
To hit my A goal of 45:00, I was going to need to run just under 7:15 pace for each mile. I got off to perhaps a little bit of a fast start with a 7:05 first mile. By the time I got to the halfway point the constant up and down was getting tough and my pace had slowed for mile 3 to 7:26. I was a little concerned because the biggest hill on the course comes at mile 4 and my 5K time was 22:26, meaning I would have to run pretty much an even split on the back half of the course to get my A goal. The downhill section after mile 3 really helped out though and I picked up my pace below 7:00 before hitting the big hill. After grinding up the hill I managed to find my rhythm again and pick up the pace strong the last two miles. I crossed the finish line in 44:41, over a minute faster than last year and under my A goal of sub-45:00.
My strong race is a good confidence booster going into marathon training here in the next few months. My mileage is getting pretty solid in the mid 20s/low 30s and I’ll hold that through late June/early July until I start ramping up on my official marathon training plan. I’ve been doing a lot of research on plans, but am leaning towards the Pfitzinger 18/55 plan, which is an 18 week plan with peak mileage weeks of 55 miles. I really feel like I need to put in that kind of mileage to help myself make the kind of improvements necessary to get to Boston.
It was another great year at Fodderstack and I look forward to heading back out to the mountains next year for another shot at improving my time on the tough course!
Chasing Boston 