The race: A nice community fun run. This was the race's 30th
anniversary, so they pretty much had it down. The course was relatively
flat with only one significant hill at the end, but it was only about a
block long. It was mostly shady and on city streets except for about a
mile on a crushed gravel trail.
My
race: I worked until midnight the night before and after fighting a
cold for most of the week, I still wasn't 100% (excuses, excuses) but I
didn't suck wind the way I had in some of my training runs earlier in
the week. So that was good. This was only my second 10k, the first
being the 2006 Speedy Spaniard. I had been running for less than a year
at that point and finished in 55:56, so I was curious to see how much I
would improve.
I didn't push myself real hard until the final
stretch. The course made a U-turn just before mile 4 and it was
encouraging to be able to see that I was not, in fact, in last place.
The hill just before mile 6 didn't bother me much and I was able to use
it to my advantage, passing a couple of my fellow runners. I finished
pretty strong with a good final kick at the end.
All in all I
enjoyed the run and felt good about my finishing time. I'll be trying
another 10k race next Saturday in Idaho so I'll see if I can't improve
in a lower altitude and a little more sleep. Funny thing -- I'm working at the Gazette tonight and one of the sports guys publishing the race results just complained to me that my name is too long to fit in the agate column.
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