Back in July when we had locked down our trip to San Diego and Disney Land I decided to peruse online for any race occurring in the area. The pickings were slim but I found this 10k race in Riverside (about 90 mile from where we were staying in San Diego). The course mapped out to be an out-and-back course with a 1-2% grade up the first 2 mile or so (I do as much homework as I can before a race - Google earth really helps). I figured this would be a good course to really see where my fitness level was plus I would be racing in my Vibrams for the first time.
With the race start was at 8:00 a.m. Aubrey (my wife), the boys (Steffin and Alex) and I headed off from the hotel in Delmar at about 6:00 a.m. I had an orange and some orange PowerAde for breakfast and off we went. My intention was to get to the race about 30 min early to get situated and warmed-up, however the smart people in Riverside decided to have a race set up right next to the freeway exit, and thus we had to take the scenic route to the start line. My 30 minutes turned into 15 minutes really fast and I still had to get my bib number. I also discovered that I left my Garmin back at the hotel - I was doing this one au-natural. I did get to the start line with about 10 minutes to spare, did a couple of stride outs to warm-up the legs, and we were off.
I think I had a relatively fast first mile (as usual) and then settled into my race pace (whatever that was) for the rest of the race. Unfortunately they had more water stations (3 x 2 for an out-and-back course) that mile markers (One at mile 5). There was a cop manning intersection control that was calling out times but without a mile marker they were kind of meaningless. I passed up a few people in the first mile or two and was pace by the guy who finished 13th and the second place female (the first place female finished in 33:08) who finished 14th in the last mile. I think I really could have gotten both of them back but I had very little motivation. My finish time as stated above was 37:42 and I finished 1st in my division. McMillan pretty much nailed on my projected 10k based off my TOU Half time of 1:23:00. I think if I had had my Garmin with me I really would have pushed for 6 minute miles, but I was overall pleased with how I did. I got this large (3" diameter) clear plastic medal for finishing first in my division which was pretty cool, but they messed up in the whole pre-registered shirt thing and I ended up with an XL t-shirt (I think I could get two shirts out of it) as opposed to the Small technical shirt I had requested (I guess I chalk it up to the second time that the race has been held).
The Vibrams were great to race in and served as a random conversation piece throughout the week. For once people weren't in awe by just how skinny I am.
I did get 6 miles of running in done Monday mornings and 7 miles between Huntington Beach and Newport Beach on Tuesday. The rest of the week was all about Disney Land with the family.
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