Spa 10k and an unexpected award

Lucky number 13 yesterday :)

I had a couple of people questioning why I was running a 10k two weeks after my marathon so thought I'd start with a quick explanation. I'm a member of the Arkansas Road Runners Club of America and this year I decided to run all 20 races on this years Grand Prix series in an attempt to become an ironperson. The Spa 10k is the 19th race of the series, next weekend is the Great Duck Race 10k, the 20th and final, yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I must say I'm very relieved that it's almost over, it's been very, very draining. Can you believe that there is a guy who has not missed a G.P. race for the last 100? Amazing!!! Super nice guy too :).

Spa 10k is an awesome race even if we do have to run up then down a small mountain, lol.........Lots of crowd support, beautiful scenery, just an all-around great race. The only improvement I would recommend is that the timing service buy a starting mat :). I do know the couple that owns the timing service and they are on a limited budget (and great people) so not going to complain too strenuously but it does hurt your time if you start in the middle or back of the pack. Because of my foot I decided to start in the middle of the pack in an attempt to keep myself slowed down a bit. Well, I was 38 seconds slower than last year but still pushed harder than what I should have since this was a get it done for ironman status race.

Started out with Tala, Becky, and Alea (Becky's daughter) and we thought Tala was going to be our rabbit today but she wouldn't play, ha-ha! Took the first 3-4 miles fairly easy then couldn't help myself, started picking up speed :).

Last year going up the mountain killed me, this year, not so much. Not a single walk break and I passed people going up. Had a couple pass me including Becky (woo-hoo!!!!) but overall was doing more passing than being passed. I wasn't even pushing hard at this point. Still trying to not kill my foot and the road is very tilted in this area.

After this though, I just couldn't stand it anymore......Started picking up speed and picking people off (sorry Melinda!). Even caught back up with Karen and Becky just before the finish line :). Felt good to push but as Karen said afterwards while I was limping around, my left foot wasn't so happy :(.

Mile splits
mile 1 8:50
mile 2 8:53
mile 3 9:01
mile 4 8:50
mile 5 8:11
mile 6 7:47
mile 6-6.2 1:54 (6:50 pace).
end time was 53:31

Final results
122/365 overall
first in age group 40-44 :)

Nice and consistent for the first 4 and negative splits to boot, a rarity for me. Not a 10k pr, not even a course pr (last year was 52:53) but considering that I was injured, not bad at all, and excepting the foot, I feel a helluva lot better than last year.

Next up was the State RRCA 2009 Runner's Awards. These aren't the points based awards, that is in February but are for male/female runner of the year, etc and are decided by member vote.......Surprisingly I was nominated in 2 categories--2009 Female Masters Runner and Most Improved!!!!!! I couldn't believe I was nominated even for one, much less 2 awards. Jackie was called up to present the female master's award and squeezed my shoulder when she went by, at this point I knew that I had won. Shocked the heck out of me!!!!!!!!!!! About started crying and if you ever have a chance to be introduced for something, Jackie's the one you want, she made my life sound impressive and it's not really :). Unfortunately, I was in such a state of shock that I carried my cup of water up with me and spilled it on both of us when I hugged her. Yep, typical klutzy Gabby fashion, lol. Sorry Jackie and thank you so much for the awesome introduction. It was better than I deserve :). Love my Cabot peeps soooo much! Karen won most improved btw!!!! Hard category that with several friends in it (I voted for Patti though!). Karen I do believe will be the 2010 Female Master's Runner :).