Women Only 10k Race Report

August 28th 2010

This race had the whole family coming to it, just so we could continue on to Windsor afterwards. The night before we got all packed up and in the morning after eating some breakfast and loading up the car we got the boys up and put them in the car still in their PJs. Once we got there parking was crazy due to the fact that there was supposed to be over 500 runners. Tom let me out before he found parking since I was supposed to meet up with some friends before things started.

I went off to the bathrooms and ran into some friends and we talked till we figured it was time to get in place. It was chilly out prior to the 8am start, but I like it that way. Once the countdown finished we were off. I wasn't planning for a PB and decided to just enjoy the run. When we hit the 1km mark I looked at my watch and was amazed to see that I was running a 5:25 pace! Way faster than the 6:15-ish I usually run. I figured I should watch it and slow down a bit and around the 2k mark where we came across the firefighter water station I did slow it down to a 5:37 pace. I was rather amazed that I was breathing ok and not killing myself. At this point I was thinking ok I'll keep it up and see what happens. If I do well I'll prove that I can go faster than I thought and if not I'll know that this pace is too much for me.

I slowed it down a bit due to some hills and the bridge. I run on this bridge almost every weekend and this time it freaked me out since with all the runners on it it was literally bouncing and I had to walk a bit on it.

I continued towards the turnaround. The sun was getting hot now and I slowed down to an almost 6:00 pace. Around 3.5k the leaders were already on their way back. I let out a couple Woo-hoos! And decided to let that motavate me to keep it up and not let the pace get much slower. The turn around was tight and I was only a minute off my 5k PB. On the way back to the finish line I was making plans to work on my speed after this half marathon I have coming up. If I could get so close to my PB for 5k then it is something I definitely can work on beating.

Around 7k I started to feel the heat from the sun and even some of the fast start and was starting to burn out. I had breakfast at this point almost 3 hours before and I should have had some fruit while on the ride over. I had to take an extra walk break in between the 6 and 8k water stations. I don't even really remember what the firefighters looked like from the water station except that I got water from a guy with a mustache.

Around 9k I needed to walk again since I was burning out big time and just wanted to be done. Once we got to that final corner and the volunteer there said that the finish line was just up ahead I was thrilled. I pushed it a bit and got ready to find my men. They were there before the finish line and I waved at them, though it took the youngest a bit to see which one was mommy. If the oldest was in runners and not sandals I would have definitely had him come finish with me. As soon as I passed them I kicked it into high gear with everything I had left. I was not letting the clock hit the 1 hour mark.

Gun time: 59:18:1
Chip time: 59:13:8
Overall Pace: 5:56
Age Group(20-29): 44/102
Gender Place: 136/331 (there was 1 guy running this race)