M'kay

Garmin Splits: 6:26, 6:22, 6:38, 6:34, 6:30, 6:20, 1:11.

Day began with an early (5am) wakeup, a bagel, banana, some juice, coffee, and prepping the dogs and ferrets to survive the morning cooped up in the house. Also saw my wife prepping to depart on a 2 day horse hunting trip (yes, that's horse, not house). At 6am, I was off on my 2 hour drive to Carnation, WA to the site of the 10k. One potty stop and 2 hours later, I was there.

A quick and painless registration, oriented myself to the start line and the restrooms, and got myself warmed up with a nice easy 2 mile run. Since some intermittent rain had fallen, decided to keep my hat and gloves to go along with tshirt and shorts. Temps were near 50F and mostly cloudy, so relatively ideal weather. Wandered around waiting for a while, then as the race got closer, ran another 1/2 mile with some Striders thrown in to stay warm. Found a good place in the starting pack (5k and 10k started together) and waited for the horn. Right around 9am, we were off!

The crowded start kept things slow for about 1/4 mile as we run down a driveway, thru a parking lot, over some grass, and onto a track. Here it started to open up as we crossed some more grass, ran up some steep railroad tie steps and turned right onto a gravel trail. Settled in at a comfortably hard pace. After running on the gravel trail for a while, descend a short but steep dirt track that took us from the high trail ground to a crossing road below. Followed the road into a park, where the road turned to dirt at around the 1 mi mark.

The road remained fairly level for the next mile and I settled in several paces behind a female runner (who became my pacer) that appeared to be running at about my same speed fairly easily. We were slowly picking off other 5k and 10k runners as we made the loop, but my effort increased out of the "comfortably hard" and starting getting into "just hard" territory. I focused on good belly breathing that I've been practicing and managed to keep a good pace through the 2 mile mark. Shortly thereafter, the 5k and 10k paths split, with 10k'ers being directed "up the hill". Oh boy!

The next 2 miles were an out and back along more dirt road trails, this time over "rolling hills". Some were steep enough that I had to run short downhill stretches a bit slower to keep my footing over the wet dirt and rock ground. On the outbound stretch, my pacer and I passed one last 10k runner. I remember seeing 2 10k'ers ahead of us and thinking "I'm in 4th! If I can pass her, I'll take 3rd!" Unfortunately, in my oxygen-deprived state, I later discovered that I'd managed to miss the fact that 2 other runners were ahead of me and ran right by me going the other way!

On the return trip from the turnaround point, my pacer almost took a wrong turn, causing me to holler (gasp) "LEFT!", which caused her to jump briefly and return to the proper trail. Several times over the hilly terrain I'd almost catch and pass her, only to fall behind a few steps again. We hit the flat portion again after the 4 mi marker and increased the speed a bit over the flat terrain. Effort now was definitely hard and it took all I had to keep in a 2-2 deep breathing rhythm. Just after the 5 mi marker, my pacer again almost took a wrong turn, and this time a feebler "RIGHT!" plus a volunteer who first looked confused but then started pointing got her back on track. We hit the paved street briefly, climbed the steep (and slippery) trail up to the gravel trail and I started pouring on the little I'd been holding back. I finally managed to pass my pacer here kept it redlined down the gravel trail. The 10k route had rejoined the 5k route, and dodging slower 5k runners and other regular trail users became an small issue. The 10k route continued past the turnoff point another 150 meters or so to another 180 degree turnaround, then back to the turnoff.

After a brief descent, I found myself running across wet grass complete with big slippery leaves. This probably warranted some caution, but I was really trying to break 40 minutes and knew I was behind from the hilly miles. A couple of slips but no falls took me through the 6 mile mark, and I headed back over the track towards the parking lot and driveway towards where the finish was located. I poured it on at this point, sprinting (or some semblance of a sprint) towards the finish. 40:04, a few seconds over my sub-40 goal time, but well under my 10k PR from August 07 and given the course conditions, an effort I'm very proud of.