103rd Thanksgiving Day 10k and the Brooks ID Leader Board

Humbling to say the least, the 103rd running of the Thanksgiving Day 10k in Cincinnati OH gave me an opportunty for good hard effort on turkey day morning.  This event in my hometown draws upwards of 17,000 people and typically produces some fast times.  I've traditionally spent Thanksgiving at Lake Cumberland so this was my first time trying the annual 6.2 miler.  Prior to this year's 36:02 at Rodes City, my 36:10 would've been a 10k PR.  This day it was good enough for 68th place overall and 4th in my 35-39 age group.

The Brooks ID Leader Board is something that helps keep me motivated for some of these fast races.   While not at all my forte, the fast road courses produce much higher VDOT scores (*see VDOT explained below).  My rank on the Brooks ID leader board has become a favorite part of my racing.  While the trail marathons and ultra marathons don't score you much in points, the road races will rack up some valuable scores.  It's fun to get finished with a weekend competition and add my race data as soon as I can find some intraweb.  As of today, I'm hanging just inside the top 25 - right behind Shayna from AZ and just ahead of David from NE (he runs a sub-4 min. mile - just doesn't race too much, whereas Shayna has a little lower VDOT but has posted seven more races than I have).  It's just so fun.

From a Running Times article by Coach Jack Daniels PhD:

Instead of referring to this pseudo VO2 Max (the one based strictly on performance) as VO2 Max, we use the term "VDOT." VO2 Max is properly stated "V-dot-O2Max." By placing a dot over the V, we’re identifying the rate of oxygen uptake—that is, the volume of oxygen consumed per minute. We shortened V-dot-O2Max to VDOT. This way, each runner has a reference VDOT value: a single number that’s easy to work with when comparing performances. This system is also ideal for setting training intensities because intervals, threshold runs, and even easy long runs and marathon-pace runs are best performed at specific fractions (or percentages) of each runner’s VDOT.