Lift Bridge 10 mile race today! I kept checking the weather, and was worried about it. Turns out when we got to Bayport, MN, it was about 70 degrees and 90 percent humidity because it was pouring rain. By a miracle, the rain almost entirely stopped by the time I began my warm up, and the weather wasn't ever too much on my mind during the race. I had been kicking myself for not bringing an extra pair of shorts for the race, but that wasn't necessary. The race itself was beautiful. It was very hilly. You gain 230 feet of elevation over the first 6 miles, and extra when you account for the downhills that there were too. At one point I was running up a steep hill in a random neighborhood all on my own (I won by 7 minutes) and it couldn't have seemed less like a race. But a race it was, and I really enjoyed it. The last few miles didn't feel too bad since they were so downhill. Given the hills, the wind, humidity, and temp, I can say with confidence that I would be sub 50 at the Pear Blossom and sub 1:07 in a half marathon with better conditions. Not bad for employing my "just run" strategy of training.
But wait, there's more! I know this should be met with skepticism, but the previously certified course was completely changed like a week ago for reasons unknown to me. When I plug it into map my run, I got 10.4 miles! On further investigation, there are discrepancies at least in the very first mile, as the course map shows us starting at a different point than we actually did. Map my run hits the one mile approximately .25 miles before the map does for that reason. I can't write it off as a better PR than what I ran, but a 10.25 mile race would have been 49:50ish, and a 10.40 mile race would have been 49:10ish. Update to that: the race website has a Mapmyrun map of the course. It shows you hitting 10 miles before the end of the race, and shows you starting further ahead than we started. Totaled up, it mean I ran about 10.15 miles. I feel good about sticking with that. That is 50:22 for a 10 mile.
Splits, according to mile markers: 5:09, 5:03, 5:15, 10:26, 5:20, 5:08, 5:03, 4:44, 4:56. You can see the effect of hills.
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