Needed a race, so I drove down to Littleton to run the Santa Stampede 10K. It was a fun event, and a decent course. Mostly flat, but it was on a bike trail, so there were a fair amount of sharp turns, and also quite a bit of ice and snow still from the storm a week ago. So the course was not as fast as it good have been.
Thought I would get good competition here, but I think most of the top area runners were out at Bend for the club XC champs. I went out pretty slow the first mile, and mostly tried not to fall on the ice, and feel out the rest of the field. By the end of Mile 1, I had moved up into 3rd place (5:11). The first place guy (Matt Levassuir) had about a 3 second lead on the rest of us.
During Mile 2, I moved into 2nd place, but Matt was still a little bit ahead, although I was gaining. Caught Matt by the end of the second mile, which was 5:09. During the 3rd mile, I made a little move and got a small gap on Matt, although I could still hear him (5:03 for Mile 3). Was feeling okay.
During Mile 4, I continued to pull away, and could not longer hear anyone behind me. The course although started heading back south, and I now had a headwind, which continue the rest of the way in. (5:14)
The last two miles, I kind of regressed into "just finish the race mode", and I wasn't really too into it. The headwind had a big part of that attitude. Was 5:19 for Mile 5, and then a wonderful 5:33 for Mile 6. Coasted in the last 0.2. I ended up with 32:37...about 35 seconds ahead of 2nd place.
Ended up having a choice of some nice sunglass or a free pair of new balance shoes as the 1st place prize...I took the sunglasses since I had just broke the ones I won at The Other Half several years ago.
Okay race...felt like I really only raced the first 5K, but I guess that means that it will be a fast recovery. I have a lot of training to do before I'm in respectable shape for Houston. 5 weeks left on that, so hopefully I can string something together. But this is my last race of year, so always good to end with a win.
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