Race for Camp Grace

Well, I ran my first official 10k race today. I have a mixed report. I wanted to have a 10k under my belt before I attempt my planned Half-Marathon on Thanksgiving morning in Atlanta. While you can find a 5k just about every weekend somewhere in Georgia, finding a 10k is a little harder. They are out there but you just don't have all the same choices. In working with my dear wife on schedule, I targeted sometime in mid-October as my ideal window. It came down to today and I had a choice between two races. A run on the Georgia Tech campus for breast cancer or a run close to where I work benefiting a Christian Camp mentoring underprivileged children. The Georgia Tech run promised to be quite large and I'm sure would have had lots of co-eds but certainly drew more than enough support. I chose to support the small race supporting the Christian Camp. My experiences with these little races has been good and far less commercialized.

The only downside to this run was that it was a Trail Run. No paved flat surface. No, we are talking about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of mowed cow pasture, 20%+ grade hills, and creeks to jump over. Sure, it makes it more interesting but certainly more brutal as well. The largest hill was about a mile in (after my 6:51 1st mile) and was roughly 300 feet up in a quarter mile. There were many other longer and shorter hills but that was the killer. Combine that with the 40 degree starting temperature this morning and it definitely was a new experience for me.

My finishing time of 54:25 was a little bit of a disappointment but not so bad as to depress me, especially in light of the grade change and roughness of the path. It was very hard to judge pace when you are constantly worried about where your next footstep is going to land. Considering all of that, and the longer distance, a minute/mile slowdown from my 5k at the end of August is acceptable I guess. I don't have all the numbers in terms of what place I came in or how big the field was. This was a small enough run and in its first year, I don't know what all they are going to put online. We will see.

For those that are interested, I'm weighing in at 205. I had stalled quite significantly at 207-208 for quite a while and couldn't get out of that rut but over the last 2 weeks I think I broke out of that rut. My goal is to be 200 by the time I run on Thanksgiving day. Depending on my pie choices that evening though, I might be right back up to 210!