Race Report: Lennox Firecracker 10k

I had put off signing up for the Lennox Firecracker 10k until the morning of the race, because I wanted to see what the temperature held for the morning. I probably should've opted for the 5k based on the 91% humidity, but I wanted to get in a hard effort 10k to give me an idea of where my speed and endurance was leading into half marathon training.

I had hoped to be around 8:50 pace for the race. Spoiler alert: that didn't happen.

The firecracker went off, but since it went off at the start of the 1 mile/2 mile/5k and the 10k were lined up an opposite way, we were all a bit jostled when our starter just shouted out "Uh you should go now!" and we all took off.

There was a much smaller group for the 10k than normal, and I found myself all by my lonesome before we got to mile one.

Mile 1 9:02

I focused on trying to keep an even pace and not slowing down too much.

Mile 2 9:09

I did a decent job of that until we hit the portion on gravel during the 4th mile.

Mile 3 9:09

Mile 4 9:22

During this point I found a couple of people to chase, so I focused on the backs of their shirts to not fade any further.

Mile 5 9:21

I passed two of the three folks I was chasing during the final mile, but got very annoyed at the traffic on the open road. There was an SUV that literally ran me off the road because someone else was running in the middle of the road ahead of me, and I was hugging the curb. I ended up having to hop up on the sidewalk to pass the vehicle and dodge him. My final mile reflected how hard I worked in the last mile with my fastest split of the day.

Mile 6 8:57

The course ended up being a little bit short with my watch showing 6.06 miles. I heard that the 5k was .1 long, so it kind of averages out with the humidity and running twice as long, right? :P

I finished the race in 55:25 for a pace of 9:09.



More importantly, my nephew Harrison was in South Dakota and ran his very first 5k. So proud!!