Sunday, August 21, 2011

10K race report

I did the Turning Stone Casino and Resort 10k (there was a 5k on friday and also a half marathon, I did the 10k length).

I woke up way earlier than normal, Mom was picking me up at 6-6:30am to go to the race, get my packet and all that. So of course, i had a really bizarre dream right before the alarm went off that I couldn't find my socks, Mom was late, and a bunch of other wierd stuff. So that had me waking up with my heart beating out of my chest.

I made the mistake of trying to eat my banana as soon as I woke up, so my stomach felt a bit off. Then Mom kept asking me if i wanted food before I set off, and I ate 1/2 a clif bar so she'd see that I had eaten something and would stop worrying.

Then it was time to get all set into the corral like cattle and soon we'd be off. I told Mom to have fun gambling and that I assumed I'd be done around and hour and a half after starting. We all got into the shoot and set up by pace time. They had signs for 6 minute pace, up to 12. I stuck toward the back because I was nervous and being trampled wasn't high on my to-do list for this race.

The gun popped and we were off. it was nice that they don't start your time until you cross the start line, so I didn't have to worry about charging out of the gate. I set myself at a decent pace and plodded along for the first km or so before taking a small walk break. After all, I wasn't out to win, just to finish.

I ended up playing leap frog with a woman, and it got to the point where we started talking. And that was my downfall. I enjoy talking, having a fun time, but it ended up hurting my time. We walked a lot more than we ran, and all of a sudden she said that we were almost done and it had been close to an hour and a half (she had on a garmin, I just had my ipod keeping track of time but it was pretty useless while we were talking because I wasn't going to put my earbuds back in. I felt like it would be rude to start a convo and then put them in and zip off.

We got back onto the casino grounds and I told her I'd catch her at the finish. Sure enough, she was right behind me as I raced my little heart out to the finish. My time was 1:38:21. Not what I wanted, I was hoping for 1:20 or under. But I got my medal and found Mom, who said she just came out a minute ago and saw me finish. She had been inside gambling, which was fine with me because I didn't expect her to sit around for me in the humidity.

My overall feelings are that the rain probably would have been nice, and that the course was more hilly than I expected. Only one real kind of steep hill, the rest were smaller, but it seemed like there was a lot more uphill than they led on.

Now i just need to survive my half in October and I should be all set.