35F, 63% humdity in Temple, Texas, clear as a bell. Probably the best running weather ever. I drove up last night after work, about a 3-hour drive from downtown Houston. When I arrived my daughter had 12 3-year olds over for a final blowout celebration of my granddaughter's birthday, which was actually on Monday. It was a Beauty and the Beast theme. I thought it looked more like bedlam. Good thing I am the grandpa and not the pa, I've done the pa part already. Conked out on the couch at a reasonable hour and got up at a pretty leisurely 6:00 this morning.
Found out I had forgotten my pullover, managed to borrow one from my son-in-law, then we headed to the race. My daughter ran too, along with several of her friends. One of them is fast, she ran cross-country for UVU 5 or 6 years ago although her 5K is 3 minutes slower now. I wondered if I could beat her but kept my mouth shut.
I warmed up for two miles, wearing gloves, pullover and beanie. By the time I finished I didn't need the pullover and after the race started I realized I didn't have my gloves on. Thank goodness for the beanie. All the Utah runners would have gotten a good laugh at us. We were bundled up like it was a trip to Alaska and chattering away about the temperatures. Really, it was perfect to run a race in, no moisture and no wind.
Unfortunately, the race started up a hill for a half mile, then turned around and came back down to the starting line. This race was sponsored by the City of Temple so I assume nobody got fired for coming up with this bright idea for a first mile in a 10K. When I saw it I told my daughter that I had never run a 10K but I was pretty sure this wasn't going to be my day. The hill is steeper than Veyo in the SGM. The good thing is it was on fresh legs. When I got to the bottom I had my first mile in at 7:27 (172 bpm) despite the hill and I knew I had a shot at making my 7:15 goal pace.
Second mile was 7:10 (174), flat and good surface. Didn't know if I was being too aggressive with my heart rate or not, but I knew I could hold 170 for 10K distance so thought I might be OK at 175. Was certainly feeling good. UVU girl was about 150 yards ahead, she is good on downhills and opened up a pretty good gap on me coming down "Veyo".
Mile 3 7:12 (174), everything hanging together pretty good. Made up about half the gap on UVU girl.
Mile 4 7:23 (177), another hill out at the end of the course. Passed UVU near the end of this mile and I started to pick up speed, figured I could do anything for 2 more miles.
Mile 5 7:05 (181), after the 7:23 on Mile 4 I made myself run faster, concentrated on form and on the second place woman, managed to pass her at the end of this mile. I wouldn't say I was OK but I have hurt worse. No significant lactate buildup in my legs.
Mile 6 6:55 (185), pretty much red-lining it here. I had a shot at catching a guy but said "nah, I'm tired". I would have tried harder if I had known he was 47 years old.
Mile 6.15 (0.58, 6:33 pace) I think the course was a little short, I measured it at 6.15 and somebody else said they got 6.19, so it probably wasn't full 10K, but pretty close. Overall pace, assuming 6.15 miles, was 7:10 (7:06 for a full 10K), made my goal, and beat my pace from last month's 5K by a small but significant margin.
I finished 10th out of 80 runners, pretty good day. (Also finished first in my age division, but let's just say it wasn't overly competitive. Second place was 27 minutes slower and there wasn't a third place.) First place overall was 35:xx, not bad but not an overly impressive field. My daughter got 26th, 8:13 pace. She has gotten faster in the last few months, even though she doesn't have much time to train with two very small children and her husband being a first-year resident. As my wife said, "You daughter is more impressive than you." Thanks dear, I already knew that.
Here we are, dorky beanie balanced out by beautiful daughter:
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