CPTC at the Bronx 10 Mile: 25 years of fast times

 

The Bronx 10 Miler is probably my favorite of NYRR’s races, so I’m including a little more of personal race perspective in this post. The course, the distance, the time of year, the competition all suit my running style (and often schedule) well. My first Bronx 10 Mile race in 2016, my first year with CPTC. I still did not even have my own club singlet yet and had to borrow Phil Falk’s (thanks Phil!) for the weekend. At the time, I was gearing up for the New York Marathon 6 weeks away and was still trying to guarantee a spot in the Sub-elite section. I had run in the Sub-elite section of the Marathon in 2015 back when I was still living in St. Louis and before I had joined CPTC, but had a rough outing, fading over the second half of the course to a 2:46. NYRR said they would put me on the tentative Sub-elite list, but would have to wait and see how many others would apply. I hadn’t done much racing in the spring of 2016 when I moved to NYC and while my 2:26 marathon time from Boston 2015 was still in the valid window for the Sub-elite section, I needed to show NYRR that I was not headed for another 2:46 in November.

 NYRR said they normally only consider marathon or half-marathon times in their selection process, but I did not have a half on my schedule before the Marathon, just the Bronx 10 Miler. So, I needed a solid run that showed I’d be ready to tackle NYC in November. I had some solid training leading up to the race and hit some Tony’s Thursday workouts in the park and the Tuesday sessions down at East River track over the summer. My long runs had been solid, but I hadn’t really tested my fitness in a race during the fall. Going into the race, my pace was going to be somewhere between 5:10 and 5:30, but I was not very confident as I headed North up Grand Concourse Ave. with a group of runners at the beginning of the race. I figured anything under 53 minutes would be useful to help my case for the Marathon and hoped I could hold that pace.

Falling in mid to late September each year, the Bronx race often is one of (and sometimes the first) “cooler weather” race of the year. After training throughout hot and humid August and September, the cooler weather always seems to give a boost. In 2016 it was low 50’s with mild humidity for the race which felt amazing after doing workout and long runs throughout the summer. Being able to warm up in a long sleeve (and even pants if you want!) helps with the mental edge as you gear up to the race. For myself in 2016, I can recall gaining confidence as my group of 4 passed the two mile mark at 10:40 and I was not drenched in sweat! Five runners had already pulled away, but 2 runners along with myself and Matt Rand had settled into a nice group. In addition to the cooler weather, the race timing also aligns with the beginning of the fall marathon season. Many runners are aiming towards a peak performance between mid October to November which leads to a lot of fit athletes in the field able to group up and work together.

The course for the Bronx 10 Mile is one of the simpler courses for an NYRR race. It’s a basic out and back, going up wide rolling hills on Grand Concourse, looping around Mosholu Parkway and heading back down Grand Concourse to a downhill finish in front of Yankee stadium (See map in dashboard above). The slight uphill on the way out always keeps my pace in check and it’s nice knowing that if you can make it through 6 miles of the course on pace, you have mostly (rolling) downhills the rest of the way. Mentally, the course breaks into three sections: 1) The first 4 miles up Grand Concourse where runners are mostly relaxed forming groups and still all feeling good 2) The 2 miles on Mosholu with a large downhill and uphill where groups break apart and runners separate and 3) The 4 mile net downhill return where you can open up your stride and roll. In 2016, my group, like many others started to stretch after turning onto Mosholu Parkway. I’m not sure if mile 4 is a little slow, but runners often seem to get antsy after turning off Grand Concourse. The big downhill towards the Botanical Garden frequently pulls apart anything that is left of a group as runners lean into the hill and clock in a fast mile 5. The key to the race for me is always hitting the uphill back to Grand Concourse (between mile 5 and 6) on pace and rolling off the top into the last 4 mile section. If you can come through mile 6 with momentum, you have a chance to do some serious negative splitting. In 2016, Matt Rand (aka the King of Negative Splits) was already pulling away through mile 6 on his way to a 78 second negative split 6th place finish (51:28-26:23/25:05!!!). While the other two runners had gapped me on the downhill as I headed through the 5 mile marker at 26:30, by the top of the hill at the 6 mile mark I had made up the gap and was on my way to a negative split myself.

I shouldn’t undersell the last 4 miles of the course. It’s not all flat or downhill like the end of the Brooklyn half. There are some serious rollers with a big incline after dipping through an underpass at mile 7 and a net uphill mile 9. But Coach Tony is usually out there at mile nine and if his cheering doesn’t get you moving through the tough sections nothing will. And even if you struggle to get through mile 9, the final mile actually is all downhill with about 75 ft of total drop. As long as you can keep your stride long, you can get a good chunk of time back just in the final mile. As 8-time Bronx 10 finisher Oscar Garcia put it, “when you make the turn onto 161th St, you feel like you have been shot out of sling shot, then Yankee Stadium, the crowd, the finish line, the music, the Boogie Down Bronx comes alive!” In 2016, even as I watched Rand continue to pull away (spoiler alert: He’s really good, see top times chart below), I picked up the pace and was able to run miles 7 and 8 under 5:10 pace and closed in a sub 5 to run 52:03. Several weeks later I was accepted in the sub-elite section for the marathon, so I like to think the race paid off (And I got some redemption in the Marathon that fall running 2:30).

I had to skip the race the following year because I was running the Berlin Marathon, but returned in 2018 and 2019 employing similar tactics on the course (albeit with slower results) both years. Each year I’ve raced there have solid groups through about the halfway point of the race along Mosholu. And while the race has always had some decent fields, once the event became part of the Club point series in 2015 the competition really ramped up. In 2014, there were 27 total runners under 60 minutes and 27 women under 70 minutes. In 2015, that immediately jumped to 69 runners under 60 minutes and 51 women under 70 minutes.

Central Park saw a similar decrease in average times for its top runners once the race became a Club Points race. But after both the Men and Women’s team had their fastest combined results (top 5 runners) in 2016, times have slowed slightly (see graph above). Times over the last four years have still been fast though. Looking at the top 10 Men’s and Women’s times on the Bronx 10 Mile course (see full list below), only 1 happened before 2016. Shout out to Mr. President, Greg Cass, who has the fastest pre-2016 with his 54:45 in 2015.

It’s always great to have such a good showing by the CPTC team at the race in the years that I’ve attended. Seeing so much orange near the front of the pack can keep you inspired even when the course gets tough. Looking at the results dashboard at the top of this post you can see the all of the orange diamonds clustered to the fast end of the results. Central Park Track Club has always prided itself on being a competitive team and that competitive nature shows in the team depth towards the front of the race. Since 2016 CPTC has captured between 39 and 57 of the top 500 spots at the Bronx 10 Mile. Roughly 1 out of ever 10 runners at the upper echelon of the Bronx finishers in a CPTC’er! In the race recap emails from Tony or Devon, we always see so many great performances throughout the team, but when looking at the results in aggregate, our team depth stands out as second to none!

The fast times are just one of many reasons both CPTC runners (and everyone else) keeps returning to Yankee Stadium each September to open the heart of the fall racing season in New York. I expect the race to stay popular and CPTC to continue to add to the top times list below for years to come!