Slump or Spry? My Lee Martinez 10K Run
For the past month, I felt like a shadow of my former running self. It started a few days after the last Tortoise & Hare race in January, right around the time I got my first shingles shot. Whether it was a lingering reaction to the Shingrix vaccine or the stubborn, minor sinus issue that had been clinging to me for the last three weeks, February was something of a slog running-wise. My breathing felt perpetually “off,” and my heart rate was acting like an over-eager metronome, ticking about ten beats higher than usual for any given pace. Garmin’s VO2 Max estimate, unsurprisingly, dropped a few points. At least HRV (heart rate variability) bounced back after plummeting the night after the shot. Garmin knows!
But still, just six days ago, I suffered through one of my worst 20K training runs on record—a humbling outing where I actually had to stop and walk multiple times. Even yesterday’s slow, medium-distance base run registered as a “tempo” effort on Garmin Connect because my ticker was slightly more active than it should have been.
By the time the Fort Collins Running Club’s Lee Martinez 10K rolled around this morning, I even briefly considered staying in bed and DNS’ing (did not start). I was fairly convinced it was going to be a disaster. But the athlete’s logic eventually won out: I’d rather show up and run slowly than not show up at all. I needed the miles.
To further make it worth the effort, I turned the race into a sandwich—a 9K warm-up run to the park, the 10K race, and a 9K cool-down back home. Twenty-seven kilometers total. A proper Sunday long run with a “tempo” filling.
The proprietary algorithm I developed for the club based off the last two T&H season’s results predicted a 45:14 finish (7:17/mile average) for me. Considering my running woes of late, that felt unrealistically optimistic. Cognizant of my 8:46/mile average from yesterday’s “high-intensity” slog, I told myself I’d be thrilled with anything under 47 minutes.
At 7:00 a.m., I fueled up on a cup of coffee and a bowl of steel-cut oats loaded with banana, almonds, flax, and chia seeds. I suited up in technical gear from head to toe, laced up my Saucony Endorphin Pro 3s, and bolted out the door. The 9K warm-up was supposed to be easy, and I did keep the effort mostly in Zone 2. But a few uphills pushed me into Zone 3 for a total of eight minutes, and Garmin tagged the run as “High Aerobic” afterwards.
I arrived at Lee Martinez Park with what I thought was four minutes to spare, only to realize I had remembered my wave time incorrectly in this slowest-goes-first, fastest-goes-last “handicapped” race. I actually had eight minutes. I spent them doing a few half-hearted strides, nursing a healthy fear of “blowing up” like I had earlier in the week. When the clock finally hit 8:54 a.m., I took off conservatively.
Then, the first surprise of the day: I passed the Mile 1 marker after exactly 7:00. I felt… okay?
The course is a deceptive mistress—a very slight 1% uphill on the way out, which becomes a gentle 1% “gravity assist” on the way back. The first mile is winding, so I focused on the “runner’s geometry,” cutting every tangent to find the shortest line. The weather was a gift: cool, overcast, and dead calm. Perfect racing conditions.
I hit the turnaround cone at 22:20. I wouldn’t be happy with that time if the race was only a 5K, but for halfway through a 10K, all considering, it wasn’t bad. The math was clicking. Sub-47 was a lock if I didn’t blow up, and my legs, while not exactly “spry,” were behaving far better than they had all month.
As I headed back, the Tortoise & Hare camaraderie was in full swing. Several other runners called out my name as we passed going in opposite directions, and a runner behind me eventually remarked, “You’re popular!” I remained quiet—talking throws off my concentration and breathing—but I did my best to wave at friends. The runner who made the “popular” comment stuck to my shoulder for a while, later thanking me for the accidental pacing.
With 500 meters to go, the finish line was in sight. I hesitated, still with misgivings that my body might betray me, and waited until the final turn with 150 meters left to finally kick into high gear. I glanced at my watch mid-sprint and realized 45:00 was 10 seconds away. I hammered the pavement, but the clock is a cruel judge. I crossed the line in 45:02.
So close to a sub-45! Part of me wished I’d started that sprint 50 meters earlier, but the overwhelming feeling was one of contentment. I even beat my predicted time by 12 seconds, something I wasn’t expecting at all.
“The race was encouraging,” I told Mel, my friend and FCRC Admin Coordinator, at the finish. “I can still run!” Earlier in the week, while she was at a neighbor’s house, I had told her of my recent running struggles, so she knew I wasn’t expecting a good result.
Upon arriving at home an hour later, I had 27 kilometers of total movement. Unsurprisingly, I was tired the rest of the day, but the feeling of happiness with the result remained. This edition of the Lee Martinez 10K (the ninth time I’ve run it) proved that my fitness hadn’t suddenly—and almost inexplicably—evaporated into thin air. Maybe it was the saline rinse I did yesterday, or maybe the shingles “fog” finally lifted, but the runner in me is still very much alive. I’m not far off from where I was a month or two ago, and honestly, that’s the best result I could have asked for.
Here’s hoping that the trend remains positive. I do still have a second shingles shot to get in a couple of months.
Race Data
Final time: 45:02 (7:15/mile or 4:30/km)
Official results
