But Dave, I thought you were running a 15K race(9.3 miles)? Yes so did I - sneaky shitz...10 miles?
I arrived on scene about an hour early to get a good parking space and to survey the route. When I walked down to the race site, the directors were packing up the race gear. Oh great!, I'm thinking they cancelled the race due to the cold. Come to find out that a water line busted and they are moving 3/4 mile up the road. The site was on a hill and the water ran down and iced the starting point and everything else for a 1/4 of a mile. That's what 18 degrees will do for you. It was miserably cold!! Heres a pic of a cool statue at the original starting point. Anyone recognize who he is?
I wore underarmour as a base layer and 2 coolmax shirts over the top, basic running pants, hats, gloves, and earmuffs. I froze my a** off! I had a very loose plan of keeping my 5k splits @ 32 ish. I set my watch with parameters to alarm if I ran too fast or too slow. Race started, and my damn watch wouldn't stop chirping for the first mile -too fast. I eventually slowed down to shut my watch up and managed to run the first 5K in 32:30. By this time, I was sweating and had to yank of my hat and ear muffs. Only I can sweat in 18 degree weather...
The course was beautiful, it was run on the greenways through Knoxville, TN. There is some 40 miles of greenways, who knew? My watch started beeping(too slow) quite often through the 2nd -5K portion. It was the hillier portion around the University of Tennessee campus and I just couldn't keep pace. I clocked 1:06 @ the 10K(33:30). Blah!! The positive was that noone passed me after the 4.5 mile mark - meaning that the faster runners had blasted through.
My 10K time really dissapointed me. I picked up my pace and set my eyes on people that I was going to pass. I passed 36 people(yes I was counting!) after the 10K mark until the finish line. I clocked 1:35:30 at the 15K mark(29:30 15 k split!) Backing up - The 8 mile mark was gut check time. I was tired! I was nauseous! My body said slow down!!!!! So my last 15K split was 4 minutes faster than the previous!
After I passed the 9.3 mile mark(15K) and knowing how badly I knew I was going to vomit, I couldn't help but to be quietly cussing the race people for pushing the start line back another half mile! I managed to pass 2 people in the final 30 feet and jump into the chute before them, we were all sprinting. I kind of felt bad for getting by them because they didn't know I was that close. Ok not really- ahahaha!!!
Final time - 1:39:21 - 9.83 miles - (10:09 pace) NEW PR! (this era...)
Cold and windburn face after the race.
Sadly I have no more pics than this due to no one wanting to get out in the bitter cold and snap photos.
I'm glad that I was able to run this race and I hadn't planned on running a long race until next year, the race "popped up" at the last moment. Minus the 10K split, I ran according to my plan. Not too bad for not knowing the course. Heck if I ran my 10K split faster, I may not have had the ability to "kick" at the end. Races are fun and exciting and I'm a sucker for a free tshirt, but the cold and nausea can stay away! And yes I would do it all over again...
Peace.