The Heights 10k - My First Podium Finish

On Saturday Oct 7th me and my husband and daughter ran the Heights Fun Run. Husband and daughter ran the 5k. I did the 10k. 

We all got a PR. Husband got a sub 30 (like 28 minutes) on his first try. Yes, he trained but geez- he's a natural. Daughter did her 5k in 39 minutes which was a PR for her, too. I think they had fun. The shirts and medals were nice. We went to eat Cracker Barrel afterwards and stuffed our faces. 

My race experience was TOTALLY different than what I expected. I trained slow but somehow wound up in 3rd place in my age group. Here's the story...

I had been training at a 11:00/mile pace, which is quite slow if you don't keep up with running/race paces. All summer long I was close to the 11 minute mile, and sometimes slower. It was SO hot. It was litterally the hottest August ever in Houston/Spring. I started speeding up a little bit, like, a week before the race. I did 2 treadmill workouts with slight incline, which is my secret ingredient for speeding things up very slightly. Last year I think the elevation sped me up by about 30 seconds a mile, so I was expecting my race pace to be about 10:30 per mile. However, I'm a nutritionist, so I focused hard on nutrition last week (yes, this includes pizza the night before- you HAVE to carb load to run long distances). I also rested pretty hard core the 2 days before the race. 

Race morning I had a decision to make. Was I going to run the 6.2 miles or was I going to race it? One of my legs was giving me just a bit of trouble a few days before, and .....I'm old now, so this is always a question on my mind before I run. Do I feel like running fast (racing?), or do I want to just enjoy the run and slow down a bit. The issue was still at hand, even at the starting line. I warmed up well in case the legs decided to perform. The question was anwered as my daughter handed me a caffienated Cliff Blok about 1 minute before the start.  Sugar rush plus extra caffiene and I was set. I decided to race. 

I controled myself the first 3 miles, and then on the second half I gunned it. It felt amazing. The weather was wonderful The crowd was encouraging. I still could only do about a 9:37 average pace, but the big suprise was waiting for me near the finish line. My husband jumped into the small crowd of runners finishing the 10k and ran with me the last 100 feet or so. He knew I'd speed up, and I did. I almost broke the 1 hour mark. When I went accross the finish line, I saw the time change from 59:59 to 1 hour, and I was slightly crushed , but mostly excited that I was able to get so close. 1 second away from my big goal, but it was definitely a PR. My second fastest 10k (last year) was 1 hour 3 minutes. After I caught my breath and got water (and my medal!), I looked up the women's results and saw that I was #5 for women 40-49. Wow. What a rush. My goal was top 10. This race had probably 500-600 people in it. I was so happy with #5 in my age group!

A few days later I checked the results again and the top 2 finishers in my category were actually running the 5k, not the 10k, so they got moved into another category. Boom. I was really #3! My first "Podium Finish"!