So today I completed my first 10K! It was the Clive Running Festival which is a fundraiser for the trails in Clive. Here's the route and statistics:
I'm really happy with the 11:00 min/mile pace. My friend Paul (who is an endurance sport ninja with multiple marathons and open-water swims to prove it) has been doing my long runs with me and was gracious enough to sign up for this with me. We ran the whole course except when we walked through the water stations. This was a nice course with some rolling hills, and paths on the trails and through some neighborhoods. This seemed to be a really well-organized event as well. It was sponsored by Fitness Sports (the local running/swimming/tri specialty store). They had volunteers along the course directing traffic and giving you your time every other mile marker. They also had the aforementioned water stations and the Clive fire department had opened a hydrant at one point along the race to help cool down although it wasn't really that hot yet at this time of day.
Probably my favorite part of this race was having people along the course cheering for us and also they had an announcer at the finish line who called out our names when we finished. (because we finished *near* the end, he had plenty of time and no distraction from other people finishing and was able to call our our names to our adoring fans).
As you can hopefully tell from the map, the 10k for this race was actually two circuits of the 5k course. Which made for probably the most interesting thing to happen during this race. We got lapped. That's right, the guy who ended up winning the 10k lapped us just before we finished the 5k and he was finishing the 10k. It was definitely humbling but cool to see some pretty fast dudes.
This was definitely a fun race. I felt really good throughout the whole thing and felt like I could have run further at the end. One note about nutrition here in case anyone is looking for that sort of thing, I always have a hard time deciding what, if anything, to eat before an early-morning run or race like this. I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not but it worked for me this time. Late on Friday night, I ate one slice of whole wheat toast with some peanut butter on it. Then I woke up about an hour and a half before the race started, ate another slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and drank a container of flavored coconut water. I felt really pretty hydrated throughout the whole race. The water stations were nice, but I think I probably would've been able to finish without them.
Looking forward to my next race which will either be a 5K this weekend or a 10K next weekend.
Here's some pics:
At the finish line. Paul's in there too but he's being obstructed by the person in the green shirt.
Me and Paul straight killin' it with our post-race swag. (I know it's Paul and I, but I always get the Willie Nelson song in my head and I can't say anything but me and Paul)
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