I’m sure you’ve heard about this before.

Elite athletes sometimes visualize their big games or activities beforehand, imagining how it will go and then doing their best to manifest it.

I guess it helps envision what to expect and ensures proper preparation.

And I can tell you it worked.

On Sunday morning I visualized exactly where in downtown Boston I was going to park and it worked out perfectly.

And the race went pretty well too.

Here’s how it all went down:

The last week or so, as forecasts became a little more sure, the BAA started sending out alerts about the heat and humidity. There would be turnoffs from the course so that if you weren’t feeling great you could bail on the 10K a little early if you needed to…and on top of that, there were potential thunderstorms that could throw a wrench in things on Sunday morning.

I tried not to worry about all of that - I have overreacted to weather forecasts with races before and it never works out well. I brought a dry shirt to leave in the car for the ride home, and bandages for my chest so I didn’t chafe and bleed from the wetness (sorry if this is TMI, but this is my new running reality - I have to bandage my nipples on my summer long runs and in marathons and in wet conditions) and that was the extent of my weatherproofing.

The forecast when I went to sleep Saturday night made rain look unlikely…and then when I woke up on Sunday it was 100% there would be rain at some point.

I got to Boston a little after 6:30am for the 8am start…I found the parking easy, sat in the car for a bit while I watched the rain fall, and then started walking over to the start area. The perk of the Distance Medley is we have a tent, and I had scouted what it was like during the 5K, so I was hoping I could have a bite to eat while I waited out the rain.

It worked out perfectly - I was at the tent by 7, had a cup of coffee and a bagel, and then watched the tent fill up. I stretched as much as I could in the crowd, and at about 7:50 I started to find my start area.

The rain was not heavy at this point. I did some lunges as I walked in more open areas and could stretch more, but I headed the wrong way. If you think of Boston Common as a square with the top labeled A and the right side labeled B, I started heading to A when my wave was lining up at B. B made their way to the start line a block to the right, and then A would follow after the line at B ended. So I hustled over to side B after realizing my mistake and was able to find my spot.

It was 8:17 by the time we got going, and I’m glad I got into my wave because I’m sure the people lining up at A were delayed further.

It didn’t rain at all during the race, and there were occasionally some nice breezes that cooled things down. The humidity was starting up, but all things considered it was tolerable. I settled into a quick pace pretty early - each mile ticked off and I was in the 9:20min/mile range.

I was worried about the size of the crowd and whether I wouldn’t have room to adjust my pace if necessary, but the roads were open enough. (I thought parts of the run were going to be on the Esplanade by the water but we were running on closed streets, so that spread things out better. Planning a big run like this is probably fun. Or maybe just a lot of headaches.)

There was a marker at each kilometer, which if I had thought to time myself between those would have been helpful. As it was, though, I just paced myself by mile.

After the first couple of miles in the 9:20s I told myself I could slow to 10 min/miles, but I just didn’t. I was good and steady and feeling good. (I also think when I did slow down it was a good recovery and I picked it up again each time. And I did grab water at each hydration stop - and Gatorade once - so I walked each of those quick stretches before picking it up again.) I think I hit 5K at just about 27 minutes, which is a good 5K for me…but obviously I knew I had another 5K to go.

The thing about a 10K is I have run 6 miles in humidity before at a decent pace. I wasn’t pushing myself to any extremes. Soon enough I was approaching Kenmore Square and the sun was peeking out and there was just about two miles to go and I was just about sure I was going to achieve my goal of finishing in less than an hour.

That’s the nice thing about this course - I’ve run all of these stretches. I’ll often run down by the Charles River. I have run around the Boston University campus many times. The finishing stretch was the last stretch of the Boston Marathon route and a little bit beyond it.

So I knew what to expect throughout as far as terrain - it felt good all the way through.

I think I’ll write some more later this week about the first two races of the Medley as a whole.

As far as the 10K is concerned, it went about as well as I could have hoped.

I crossed the finish line still feeling strong, got my t-shirt, and went back to the Distance Medley tent to see if I could get the picture you see above. I finished the 5K in the first wave of runners so the line was very short. This time the line was longer but it wasn’t a bad wait. (Interestingly, the woman who took this picture did so from the ‘video’ tab on the phone because it shows the LED screen better. I thought that was a good little photo lesson.)

I’m hoping I’ll be able to get that picture at the half marathon too.

The Distance Medley has been a great experience - I’m really glad I signed up for it.

And I like 10Ks. I gotta see if I can find more of those.