I ran the  Park-to-Park 10 Miler on Labor Day and here’s a brief rundown.  Here are the facts:

• Time: 1:24:27.

• 8:21/mile pace

• 174th out of 534 participants.

• 16th out of 44 men in my age bracket.  (I tried to calculate how I did among all men and it was hard to figure out.  Looks like I was in about the top ⅓ of the group.)

Nothing spectacular but not too terrible either.  I improved on my 2009 time by about a minute-and-a-half.  I like that.  Other than that, it was very warm and for Denver it was humid.  Denver is a hilly town.  You may not notice it if you’re driving it but try running 10 miles through town and rarely do you encounter level ground.  What follows is more important than any of this.

I first ran this race back in 2009.  That was with the beginnings of an Achilles problem that would plague me for about two years.  (And I believe the Achilles problem was a symptom of a much bigger collection of issues that had affected me since about 2002.)  Since overcoming the Achilles trouble, I’ve run several races including my first marathon last year.

This summer a new problem cropped up in the form of some knee/IT band pain.  Would this derail my race?  Discussion boards are filled with people bemoaning the fact that they’ve spent years battling IT band pain.  What did this mean for me???

I recently discussed the etiology of IT band syndrome and how to address it.  (Work on the hip abductors!!) I’ve been a religious ultra-zealot about addressing my hip abductor deficiencies. With much relief and joy, I didn’t feel a bit of pain during the run.  IT band pain often strikes during downhill descents.  I didn’t feel anything.  Nor did I notice anything near the end when I was tired and pushing hard.  I’m thrilled to have figured out this issue and to have defeated it in fairly short order.