A week ago Sunday (4/8) was the SacTown 10 mile race up in — yup, you got it — Sacramento, a PA race, my first 10 mile race in a decade, and my first PA race post-stroke. I think at every big marathon I’ve ever run, I always see someone holding a sign that says something to the effect of “do something every day that scares you,” and let me assure you, as irrational as it was, returning to Sacramento to race — the very place where just 9 weeks before, I had driven to for another PA race and ended up sitting it out last minute because I had a blinding headache stroke, unbeknownst to me — yeah, that mightily qualified as “doing something that scares me.” Clearly, driving two hours to Sac and then racing there in February didn’t cause my stroke, but even though I had been medically cleared to run for the preceding 4.5 weeks come Sactown race day, it still felt a little weird to return. The wound was still fresh, though fortunately not as gaping as it once was.

Before I had gotten sick, I was really looking forward to this race — having not run a 10 miler in a literal decade, since the Perfect 10 Miler in NE Ohio back in summer 2008 — and to the possibility of utterly shattering my 10 mile PR, which was as soft and low-hanging as they come. Getting sick and sidelined for a bit changed all of that, though, so my focus shifted accordingly; the victory would come in finishing the thing and in helping to field a full women’s team that day. Those two components would be sufficient; anything else would be gravy.

In the weeks leading up to Sactown, I had cautiously bumped up my mileage, with my longest continuously-run run topping out at 11 and change over some great, hilly terrain in my ‘hood. I hadn’t done any speedwork whatsoever, so my pacing plan for Sac was something along the lines of “do what feels good” and “remember that you’ve only been running for 4 ½ weeks.” I figured that the pace would amount to something in the 8s, maybe flat-to-mids, but honestly, more than anything, the name of the game was to rely on feel. My Garmin was there just to capture data, not to dictate how I ought to be rolling.  

Once my teammates and I arrived to Sac on race morning, we ran a couple mile warm-up and then settled into the corrals pretty easily. The course was somewhat weird, though I imagine much more logistically easier to manage than other alternatives: two 5-mile loops, with scenery that included brief residential sections, a bike path, some industrial/office park area, and then a quick little jaunt through the mall area outside the Capitol. The race also offered a 5k distance — not part of the PA race — that began earlier in the morning, so I imagine that it was much easier to cordon off such a comparatively smaller section and less scenic portion of Sac and West Sacramento than, say, what the city had to do for a bigger race, like CIM. The Sactown 10 course, itself, was pretty average in my book, not really anything to write home about, and not particularly memorable, though with its very few inclines, I could see how it’d lend itself to some fast 10-mile times (which would make it memorable for many!).

Without a lot of fanfare, we were all off and running our two laps. It was a sunny and gorgeous spring morning, and by the race’s end, it felt like it had warmed up considerably. I felt pretty good throughout my race, just chugging along and doing my thing, and reminded myself how lucky I was to be there, doing what I was doing, given what could have been a dramatically different outcome just nine weeks earlier.

I tried to stay as evenly-paced as possible and ended up with a 7:40 average, with about a 20 second positive split, on a course that seemed to be at least .1 mile long, based on what I had heard from many of my teammates and what I had read about from last year’s race. (GPS and race distance discrepancies are part and parcel in this sport, it seems, and I try not to get too hung up about it. I’m assuming that it was USATF certified, since it was a PA race and all, so I figure being off .1 or so probably falls within the suitable discrepancy range for certification. For their purposes, it’s surely better to be over by a little than under).

 

By the end of the day, I had posted 14 miles, with the warm-up and cool-down miles I shared with my team, which amounted to my biggest volume day post-stroke and just shy of 40 for the week, another new volume record post-stroke. It was honestly fantastic to be in Sac with my team, to be able to share the miles and the experience with them (including some awesome PRs!), and even with me being the DFL Wolfpack finisher that day, I honestly didn’t care; I was (am) just happy to be there, doing what I love to do. A little perspective can go a long way.

 

Running Sactown also gave me some good feedback about how my fitness was shaping up in the 4.5 weeks of running that I had been doing post-stroke and would help give Lisa and me both some direction as I begin training for the SF Marathon in earnest. Plus, Sactown was an excellent and fairly low-key and low-pressure stepping stone for me in April in advance of the Silicon Valley half marathon a week later and a couple April 5k races, too. There was definitely a point in my life where I’d only sign up for a race if I felt like I were in “racing shape,” but now — post-stroke or otherwise — I’m more inclined to sign-up and just run without expectation, being happy with whatever I can do on the day, with whatever effort I can muster. Race day is so fun, besides, and the feedback it can give you — the feedback I get from racing, anyway — is pretty invaluable. That, coupled with the social aspect that the morning brings — you can’t get much better than that.