Marin Memorial Day 10K - 05/31/10

IT WAS VERY CROWDED at the start of the Marin Memorial 10K (6.2 Miles).  The saving grace was that this was a Pacific Association/
USATF race.  That means that it was a fast and competitive field.  I was jammed in, but everyone around me was going at a respectable pace.  To the extent that the pace may have held me back a few seconds at the start, that was good.  This race is produced by the Tamalpa Runners and served as the PA/USATF 10K Championship.

Marin County has a series of hills and mountains that divide the County into distinct areas.  The mountainous terrain makes for beautiful scenery, great cycling and challenging trail running.  Plotting out a flat road race is more of challenge, but this race took advantage of the floor of the Ross Valley to do so.  The race was in the general area where I had my second run in The Relay.  Wooded residential area, remember? 

The Pamakids

I was running this race as a member of the Pamakids Running Team.  The Pamakids are an outgrowth of the Dolphin South End Running Club.  DSE was founded in 1966 by members of the Dolphin Club (The Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club, founded in 1877), The South End Rowing Club (founded in 1873) and the San Francisco Rowing Club (defunct, I think, after their club house burned) who all enjoyed running.  Their approach was to encourage women and average people to participate.  They organized low key, informal events.  Those traditions continue to this day.  In 1966 this was a foreign concept and contrary to the approach of the Amateur Athletic Union, then the governing body of road racing.  The AAU had lots of rules that actually discourage broad participation in events and they did not allow women to race (until 1974). 

A group of DSE members wanted to participate in the Bay to Breakers as a team.  The Bay to Breakers was an AAU sanctioned event and all participants were required to be AAU members in good standing.  The AAU ruled that the DSE team was a group of runners from three different clubs and AAU rules did not permit such teams.  In response, the runners decided to form a new AAU sanctioned club.  The Pamakids Runners Club was eventually sanctioned by the AAU in January 1971.  DSE and the Pamakids are now two separate and distinct clubs, but with some overlap in membership.  As an aside, the AAU came under increasing criticism for its arbitrary rules.  The AAU was effectively removed from its governance role in 1979.  Today, USA Track & Field is the governing body for long distance running (as well as track & field and race walking).

The Race

We started in Kentfield at the College of Marin (a public community college).  I was about ten feet back of the start line.  After the gun sounded, it was a shuffle until things started to move past the start line.  The first mile came in at about 6:16.  I was able to make a little headway by using driveway aprons to pass.  Near one and one-half miles we entered a seminary and things started to open up.  The roads were wider and that thinned out the crowd.  Mile 2 was about 6:17.  By Mile 3, we were returning the way we had come.  My pace was about 6:10. 

Before Mile 4 we broke off the outbound route, went through a parking lot and ended up on a bike path next to the Corte Madera Creek.  Mile 4 was 6:23.  The run through the parking lot and over a small bridge was taking its toll on my pace.  The fifth mile was along the creek.  It was a very beautiful area to run.  I started to feel the strain and thought it looked like I was running slightly up hill to a bridge over the creek at Bon Air Road.  I backed off the pace a little and came in at 6:32.  I checked the profile after the race and saw that there was no hill.  It was all in my head.  After the bridge, we headed back to the College of Marin.  Mile 6 was 6:29.  The race finished on the track at the College.  The last .2 was about about 1:22.

My chip time was 39:26 and my gun time was 39:31.  I was aiming for 39:30, which is one of the qualifying times for a fully seeded entry to the Bay to Breakers.  They will take the chip time, but I would rather do it with gun time.  So, I will use another race.  I came in 15 out of 45 in my age group and 149 out of 565 overall.  Just to show how competitive this race is, I came in 6 out of 1932 in the Bay to Breakers for my age group.  It is just a matter of who shows up for the race.  My age graded score was 80.4.  A good run.

For the first time in a race, I used my Garmin GPS watch.  The data can be found on the Garmin Connect website.  Each split is where I marked a mile based on the course markers.  Garmin came up a little different.  Lap 7 is just after I crossed the finish line.  Lap 8 is where I did not get the watch turned off correctly. 

The next major event is the Napa to Sonoma Wine County Half Marathon, Sunday, July 18.  There will be some smaller events before then, including the start of the DSE Summer Race Series.