I woke up Saturday morning after going to bed way too late for a race eve. Luckily the race wasn't scheduled to start until 10am. I ate breakfast and did my hip exercises, foam rolling, stretching, hip flexor stretches, and finally woke up Kyle and Ollie to head to the race start. I did a half mile warm up with some striders and then it was time to start.
I was the only one wearing shorts and a tank, so I win that category I guess. I started toward the front because NO ONE was going up to the front. It was weird. There were probably 3 girls at the front front, otherwise no one was even close to the start. The race is chip timed, but it's gun chip timed (does that even make sense?) so I didn't want a ton of extra time from starting at the back. Also, there were a TON of runners, and a skinny path to race on.
We started and I felt good and fast. I settled in to a comfortably hard pace pretty easy on. Jenn wanted me to run without my garmin because she's convinced I'm faster than I think I am (spoiler: I'm not) so I compromised by ignoring my watch for the first while. My first mile clocked at 8:32. Oops. After consulting my garmin info, my max pace was 6:39. LOLZ. Pacing, I haz none.I could feel my legs slowing and getting heavier during mile one, so I wasn't surprised when mile two was slower, but I wasn't expected to run it that slow. Mile 2 was 8:58.
Mile three and four stunk. My legs felt like poo, and I kept getting passed. During mile three I started to see the leaders fly by going the opposite direction since it was an out and back. I kept myself busy counting chicks to see what place I was in. At the turn around, I was 26, which is my lucky number. Wahoo! Before too long I was 31. Womp. Mile 3 was 9:01, Mile 4 was 9:07.
I finally got my mind straight the final two miles and realized I only had about 20 minutes left of hard running to do, and if I didn't kick it in, I was going to run slower than I did in June, when I was just getting back in to running. I started slowly picking off the gals that had passed me in mile 4. Mile 5 was 8:59.
The final mile I just tried to haul as best as I could, and I was really invigorated by catching up to people (as terrible as that sounds). I forget how nice it is to race in a race, that extra little competitive edge really helps the final miles when you're just ready to be DONE. Mile 6 was 8:49.
I had started to run "all out" or as all out as I could muster at about 5.7 because I thought I could run a 4 minute half mile to finish close to 55 minutes. There were a few more girls I was chasing down that had passed me in miles 3 and 4, so I kept them in my sights. My final .24 was 1:48 for a 7:27 pace, and a max pace of 6:40.
My final time was 55:17 for an average pace of 8:51.
This was about 25 seconds faster than the 10k I did in June, and a slighter lower HR, but higher max HR, which is interesting. I definitely kept my mind during this race, which is a huge win for me, as I usually give up when my goal time is out of reach. But it also shows my extreme lack of speed work for the last 4 months. So many LSD runs. It'll be nice to crush this 10k time this spring after I add speed back to my newfound endurance. WHOOP!Race Review: I would highly recommend this race to anyone considering doing it. It was cheap, $35 for the early bird sign up, came with a tech T, had 5k and 10k options, race loot for winners, costume contests with various categories, EVERYONE dressed up (which was awesome, I'm a sucker for costumes!), well run, well organized, great treats post-race. It was great!
Official Results
Trick or Treat Trail Run
RACE STANDINGS
- 55/136
- 23/91
- 4/22
- 307
- F
- 29
- 10:02:39.243
- 0
- 0
- 0
- 0
- 00:55:17.724
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