Snips and Snails and Puppydog Tails

I ran my first ever 10K race today. To say I felt unprepared would be an understatement. I’ve been training for the Dallas Rock-n-Roll half marathon at the end of March, and had been doing pretty well, until . . . remember that ice/snow I posted about from the beginning of the month? Yeah…that, combined with some other stuff (details are for another, more raw post) had me in quite a rough patch, and my training dropped to nearly nil. In fact, before this morning, I had run two times in the last 3 weeks, one 3 miler and one 5 miler. So, I was hoping to just be able to finish today with more jogging/running than walking, and no tossing of cookies. To be honest, really just getting up this morning at 5 and out the door by just after 6 was a victory in and of itself.

Back to the race report: We got to the start of the race, by the newly revamped FW Science Museum and the Will Rogers Complex, with no trouble at all, thanks to Bryan’s meticulous planning of our route the night before. And we timed it pretty perfectly, too – we didn’t have to rush to get me in the starting corral, but I also didn’t stand around freezing my gazungas off for too long, either. I started off pretty far to the back, by the sign that said 11:00 min/mile +, but before the starting gun, the crowd surged forward, so I really have no idea what group I started with. After the National Anthem was sung (with all the words) quite nicely by one of the Fort Worth Opera men (I’m sorry, I didn’t hear his name, but he was REALLY good), we got started.

I waved to Bryan and Sam as we turned off Gendy onto Lancaster at the start of the race  (here’s the course map, in case you’re curious), and then focused on 1) not tripping or otherwise hurting myself, 2) not freaking out. The course started off going slightly uphill (okay, the hill up Montgomery by the UNT Health Science Center looked more than “slightly uphill”), but had a nice, long, gradual downhill through some beautiful older Fort Worth neighborhoods (Monticello and Crestwood, if I remember correctly). Between miles 2 and 3, we turned onto Rockwood Park Dr and had a gorgeous morning run through Rockwood Park along the river and along the backside of Greenwood Memorial Park. Incidentally, it was somewhere between mile 3 and 4 that I saw two people toss their cookies (actually the first time I’ve witnessed that in a race – I guess I’ve been lucky). I don’t know who they are (1 man, 1 woman) but I hope they finished the race okay, and I am VERY thankful that the were able to step several feet off the course before they got sick. It was also somewhere between mile 3 and 4 that I witnessed what, if Bryan had done to me, would have gotten him killed. There was a guy (I’m guessing college-aged, since he was wearing a fraternity shirt of some sort) running with a girl (who was clearly a runner – the boy was clearly not), and he was really struggling. Especially as we had to top the levy. The girl, honestly trying to encourage him says, “You’re doing great! You can do it! You’re ALMOST DONE.” Now, perhaps (I hope?) she meant he was almost done with the nasty hill up the levy (short and rather steep), but my immediate thought was, “oh, man, that’s mean. He’s still got half the race to go!” So, just a word to the wise, folks, don’t tell someone they’re “almost done” or “almost there” when there’s still half the race to go. In fact, don’t use those words until you’re sure the runner is somewhere under half a mile to the finish.

After crossing under University, we came up onto street level again right about at mile 4 and had a little jog through a more industrial part of town. Scenery wasn’t too great, but we did get to run past Montgomery Plaza. We crossed over 7th Street just after mile marker 5. On the south side of 7th Street, we turned onto Foch, where I did walk through the aid station to grab two sips of Powerade and toss the cup into the trash. Oh, did I forget to mention that I’d been running the whole time and feeling pretty dang good? Well, I was! And, the only reason I walked through the aid station was because I’m very uncoordinated and cannot drink from a paper cup – even for two sips – and jog at the same time. I immediately picked it back up for the last push uphill to the finish. (Here is the elevation map of the course, just in case you don’t believe me that it was an uphill finish.)

As I made the turn from University onto Harley, I started watching for Bryan and Sam. I saw them before they saw me and actually got their attention. Right after I saw them, I saw the finish line and had a pretty darn good kick, if I say so myself. All in all, it was a great course, beautiful weather, and I felt really, really good about the race. I felt even better when I looked down at my Garmin and saw the time showing 1:04:57. I found the official stats on the website this evening.

Gun time: 1:06:24
Chip time: 1:04:59 (I’ll go with this over my Garmin, because I never saw the start mat, so I didn’t start it until I was under the big, blow-up “Start” arch)
Overall place: 1889 out of 3329 runners
Overall AG: 152 (I think – not positive on some of the categories on the stats site) out of 368
Overall Gender:769 of 1907 ladies running this morning

I think that gets it all. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out this morning. Bryan’s running the Cowtown half marathon in the morning, so we’ll be up and at ’em early tomorrow, too! Now the question remains in my mind, can I somehow pull out a half marathon in another month? I don’t know…stay tuned.