Freezeroo #4 Hearnish 10K - Run10k

For the first time this winter I think I actually dressed right, which was nice. We had placed ourselves in the back half of the crowd so I would avoid taking off at a faster pace than desired. I felt I would be happy running this at a 9:00 min pace based on the comments about how much climbing there was. The first mile was fairly flat, at least for this course. Shortly after we reached the first climb and I tried to maintain a steady although slower pace thinking that as big as the hill was, the rest couldn't be that bad. Went down the other side and the climb wasn't too bad and started to pick up the pace as I felt pretty good. Spent the next 2 or 3 miles just going up and down, trying to take advantage of the down hills to make up some time and my pace was now fairly steady at 8:30. About mile 4.5 we were heading down a gradual hill and the road kind of disappeared into the woods and I'm looking ahead thinking "boy I hope those trees are tall!" But they were no taller than the rest and it was just one long climb up to mile 5.5. The type of hill you would drive miles for your runs to avoid. Then it was a quick down hill to about the most level part of the course, the last half mile. I have been working in my training runs, even the low hr runs, to really ramp up the pace the last mile to train my legs to finish strong. I tried to do the last half strong today and was very pleased to see the 7:03 pace for this portion.

I really don't have anything. It would be nice to be a bit stronger on the hills, but as it was I was one of the only one in the group that I could see running the last hill so I am happy with that. I live in a hilly area so most of my outside runs have ups and downs so this was hard, but not brutal.

Met up with jackjack and Marmadaddy and cheered ridgelake and dexter in. The whole BT crew did great. Celebrated with a V8, chatted a bit and some of us went off to Brueger's Bagels for a sandwich and my new favorite recovery drink, hot chocolate!


I'm still carrying a bit too much weight to be an age group challenger, but the progress has been good.


This is a series put on to get people out in the winter. Not a lot of fluff, but the basics are great. I'm glad I brought my own water bottle, only one stop on the course, but I kind of think thats expected for this race.