Friday, November 26, 2010

10 Mile Race - Thanksgiving

Thankfully on Thanksgiving there are various "turkey trots" to chose from.  The last number of years I have run against the turkey in the Mesa MiAmigo 10K Turkey Trot and even beat him last year (thankfully he ran slower than expected time).  This year John and I decided to run the ARR (Arizona Road Racers) 10 miler in Peoria instead because thankfully, it was closer to home.

Thankfully the race had a later start of 8am so it should have been a little warmer, right?  WRONG.  It was cold and super windy.  The jacket provided me little protection as I shook my way through line to get my race packet. Thankfully once the race started I warmed up although it took 2 miles.

John ran with me and my goal was to go out at 8:15's and see what happened.  Coming off from Ragnar just 5 days before, I didn't want to race it full out. My legs felt super heavy at the beginning and I even considered stopping because I was tired.  Thankfully at the halfway point my competitive nature kicked in and I would identify a woman in front of me, tell John...pink socks/pink shirt.... and then she was my focus.  John said I should go for the guy that was closer and my response was he's not in my age group.  My strategy worked, I thankfully passed other runners and as you can see by my splits, I thankfully got faster.

8:16
8:17
8:10
8:02
7:53
7:50
7:53
7:46
7:32
7:35


There is another reason that I wanted to take this race easy.  I've never run a 10mile race before making it an automatic PR.  So if I don't run this first one super fast, then next time I can do better and get another PR.  Thankfully my finishing time was 1:18:55/7:53 pace.
196th out of 660
7th out of 58 in age group

This is an out/back course and I love seeing the leaders come back through.  Sally, an elite local, was running in her signature hot pink socks and I cheered her on.  One of these days I'd like to get a picture with her but she's finishing the races so much sooner than me she's either left or doing a 10 mile cool-down by time I finish.

Post race picture (got my new Ragnar jacket on)
Happy Running! (Thankfully I'm finished with my Thanksgiving race report)

3 comments:

Adrienne said...

Oh man, you are in my hometown of Peoria and I'm in Utah. One of these days we'll meet up. Cold? It's zero degrees here I think I might freeze to death. Nice strategy on running your 1st 10 miler.

Natalia said...

Christina, you are my running heroine. Officially. I love reading your posts, and you have given me a good idea for next year.........I will put it on my blog before the end of the year.
Good job on the race, and great strategy!

Black Knight said...

Congrats on the fast race. You are in the first pack!