Run Thru the Hills - Run10k

I've never folded a race into a longer run before so I was already a little in unchartered territory. Add to it such tough hills and that I hadn't taken in any nutrition during the 54 minute "warmup lap" and I wasn't sure how this would go. I felt pretty good though and my legs felt surprisingly fresh. I think cutting it so close on finishing the first six miles worked to my favor as my body didn't have time to calm down and I was still in running mode. I was not technically "racing" this race and the plan was to stay in zone 2 the first three miles and then gradually build to half mary race pace the last three. This was tough to do in race situation because I just wanted to cut loose and go. I did let my HR creep up into zone 3 on a couple of the hills because I would have had to slow down so much to keep it lower.

Mile 3 finally came and I was soooo happy. I could finally start running the way I wanted. I did slow up a little in mile 4 as I passed a woman asking her friend for a gu and her friend didn't have one. I did take a gel and some fluids at the first aid station, but felt pretty good. Thanks to my failure to take in any nutrition earlier, I had a couple extra gus and knew I wouldn't need both of them. So I slowed up to give her one of my spares. Then I took off and pushed as hard as I could given how tough the course was. I knew the last 1.2 miles was much more flat than the rest of the course (although it still had some nice low grade inclines so as not to let us off the hook completely) and I pushed hard. It's only 1.2 miles after all so you might as well go for it. I actually came in much faster than expected on it.

Mile 1 = 8:38, avg HR 162, max 170
Mile 2 = 8:52, avg 168, max 178
Mile 3 = 8:44, avg 169, max 178
Mile 4 = 8:17, avg 177, max 185
Mile 5 = 8:12, avg 175, max 185
Mile 6.2 = 8:51, avg 182, max 190 (pace = 7:22)

Overall number of finishers is based on what was posted after the race until the official results come out. Not sure how many women were in my AG.

Not sure there's much I could have done different since this wasn't a standalone race being run for time for me. Given I placed third in my AG, I would like to see what I can do if I did run it standalone and hammered it the whole time. It would hurt, but that's part of what would make it fun. :)

Jogged another mile and a quarter and then came back around to find Scott (Schmize) and family, Laura (Whizzzz), and Chris (Coredump), and then we headed over to the pancake breakfast where Scott and Chris both got second in their AG. And I somehow managed to pull off a third place AG even though I hadn't planned on this being a race!


Running the first three miles in zones 2/3.


Tough course with lots of short, steep, seemingly non-stop hills. Fairly small as well so not crowded, but also not tons of crowd support. I would definitely do it again and would even think of running it for training runs to get the hills in. It will definitely challenge you.