Oh geez, I'm turning into such a bad blogger, well not that I was ever GOOD at it but at least I seemed to have some enthusiasim for making it interesting but I seem to be just blah anymore. Sorry about that folks :-(
Yesterday seemed like it was gonna be a repeat of last year's deluge complete with flooding & lightning but Mother Nature nicely enough seemed to cooperate a bit more. Not that there wasn't rain during parts of the race--oddly enough I would've preferred more, not necessarily a hard rain but a nice gentle patter would've been nice throughout to ease the oppressive humidity that was going on, blech.
We ended up getting there later than what I prefer. I like enough time for catching up with friends, bathroom visits, packet pickup and a more extensive warmup than I had but still wasn't super rushed. And when I say we, I mean James & me. He ran his first 10k yesterday :-), actually this is only the second time that he's ran 6 miles.
For Arkansas this is a fairly large race, it's a 5k/10k combination that starts at the same time so the lineup is always crowded, nearly 900 participants for both this year. Normally it's chip timed so you don't get penalized too much for starting further back but this year the guy operating the timing service didn't click the correct button for the starting mat, grrr. It didn't hurt my time too terribly bad, I was about a 1/4 of the way back in the crowd but if you started in the back it definitely hurt your time :-(. As it was, I started my garmin as soon as the gun went off instead of waiting until I crossed the start timing mat because I've been burnt a few too many times on the timing.
Madhouse start, even with being only a quarter of the way back I still had major work to do getting thru the crowd. Finally get out in the open after maybe a 1/3 of a mile and was able to try to settle into a more level pace, which of course is too fast for the beginning. There was a very nice talkative man that I ran with for approximately a mile which made that part quite nice, unusual finding that in anything less than a 15k. Around mile 3 I decided I wasn't having any fun and considered for quite a while just stopping to walk & running in with James but my pride wouldn't let me do that, lol. What's that saying about before a fall? Yeah, that's bit me in the ass a few times.
It's around this point where the course starts going uphill. I didn't remember that at all from last year but then again I was more worried about getting swept away or lightning struck last year. Oops, I'd told James it was a flat course..........All I could think was that he was gonna be so mad at me for lying to him, lol!!!!! Mile 4-5, I'm kinda leapfrogging with the same group of guys and 3 women and the rain has picked up. I'm enjoying the rain 'cause it's cooling me down but one of the women is constantly bitching about how she hates the rain and I notice that she's slowing during the harder downpours. Good news for me because I know then that I'm going to leave her behind ;-))). Hey, don't judge, this is a race not a fun run......
This is another track finish, but it does a bit of a hard curve to enter the track. Hate that section :-(, plus you look around and that oval seems near endless. I did have a bit of a kick left and managed to pass the last woman that I'd been leapfrogging with, I guess it was at just under 100 feet left to the finish line. Some people get kinda cranky when you do that and I'm guessing she was one, didn't want to talk to me afterwards. But as I said, it's a race and one of the women that I usually finish after wasn't cutting me any slack either, she was 4 seconds behind me, lol. I didn't 10k pr today but it was a course pr, last year's time was 52:43.
Official time posted (gun time) 51:06
Mile 1 7:52
Mile 2 7:57
Mile 3 8:06 there be an incline here!
Mile 4 8:34 where'd that hill come from?
Mile 5 8:24
Mile 6 8:18
Mile 6.2 1:49 (7:13/mile pace)
My garmin time was 51:03 and I started it right when the gun went off instead of when I crossed the mat so I'm betting that's what my chip time would've been. Or even less, because I had to stop at least once due to the crowd stopping.
122/445 overall
21/216 overall female
2/27 40-44 female age group
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