The First Race Is In The Books
The first race of the season is in the books! As the sun was cresting over the horizon in Tempe yesterday, there was a slight chill in the air as we warmed up in the festivities surrounding the Phoenix New Times 10K Run + Walk + More. In training for the ½ Marathon coming up in January, I thought it would be best to attend as many races as I can. The 10K seemed like a great place to start, for it’s just under ½ the distance of the ½ Marathon, and races of this size will help in getting the feel for running in large crowds.
Everyone participating was in good spirits, some more than others (yes, I’m talking to the guy running in only a thong!!). The crowds thinned out pretty nicely around mile 3, and really never felt that crowded from the get go considering there were over 3000 runners. We had volunteers at each mile shouting our current times. Unfortunately at mile 3, the time seemed to be misrepresented, for I seemed to gain quite a bit on my pace, only to find at mile 4 that my pace dropped considerably. I tried to quicken a bit through mile 5, and really picked up the pace once I had my sights on the finish.
My goal was to keep the race under 1 hour, however when I eyed the race clock, it was already at 1:00:37 with about 200 yards to go. As I kicked through the finish, my official time was marked at 1:01:20, so I was a bit disappointed to find myself over the hour mark. To my surprise, I forgot about the .2 miles above the 6 for a 10K, so my official pace was 9:53; 7 seconds under my pace goal. Considering I’ve been fighting a chest cold for the past week-and-a-half and consuming too many alcoholic libations the prior evening, keeping under a 10:00 mile pace was just fine with me.
The next race is a shorter 4-miler on Thanksgiving morning, and my pace goal will be 9:00. Only time will tell to see what turkey-day has in store for me!
I’d also like to give a quick shout-out to Lady Fumo Santo who also raced yesterday and finished with an impressive 1:09:08. For a girl who doesn’t like to run, she proved yesterday that she has what it takes to run the ½ Marathon. She kept by my side for the first 3 miles and still managed to finish strong despite some defective shoe pain in her foot. Great job honey!
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