North Shore Cancer Run 10k

Today was an  experimental morning: With the arthritis, can I still run road races? I've been able to run some decent mileage in training, but it's all been either on the turf field at the high school or the treadmill at Planet Fitness. I did run the D5K for the first time in many months this past Wednesday, as a test before today's 10k. If I couldn't manage the D5K, there wasn't much point in running the 10K today.

It turned out the D5K went well, and I didn't experience much joint pain, so I made it a "go" for this morning's 10K. The race starts and ends at the Cove Community Center in Beverly - the same location as the Beverly 10 miler every June. Arriving early, I enjoyed the dawn coming up over the water at nearby Lynch Park:

The race course is one I've run many times, both in training and running the 10 mile races every year. My plan was simple: Run fast and hope my knee and hip don't revolt before the finish. I haven't run anything faster than 9 minute miles in training in a long time, and usually my mile time is closer or even slower than 10 minute miles. So I wasn't expecting a lot of speed.

As it turned out I was pleasantly surprised at how well things went. I was able to run better than 8 and a half minute miles and, once I warmed up into the race, was even able to put in a few sub 8 minute miles. Here are the splits:

The official time was 51:10 at an 8:15 pace. More importantly, none of my joints gave me any real problems during the race. So I may have figured out a way forward to keep running: Don't run consecutive days, train on the treadmill and turf field, mixing in plenty of cross training on the bike or elliptical - and save the pavement running for races. There is still some running left in the old legs.