American Tobacco Trail 10 Mile race
Who says you can’t race while tapering? While Scottie and I were planning out our races this season someone on our triathlon forum mentioned this race as a great “training run” before our marathon, so we signed up!
We had been closely watching the weather as the weather geniuses called for 80% rain that day. I should know better then to trust them! The day ended up being not so bad, cloudy with the occasional sprinkle but nothing terrible. It was strange to go to a race without a ton of gear, but it sure made for an easy morning. We were out the door just after 7am and made our way to Apex where we parked and took a shuttle to the race site. I had picked up our numbers and shirts the day before, which worked out well since we had to shuttle in so the morning of we grabbed our timing chips, took an easy jog to loosen up and stretched. Everyone walked to the start line and the women were set to start at 8:50, the men went off at 9am. This “course” is completely flat which was heaven to my legs! It is also packed dirt which I really think helped some lingering problems I have had.
I will say I realized one of my top running pet peeves: women that chat and gossip while running! Ugh! I don’t know why it bugs me so much but it does. Probably because I like to think and zone out a bit and hearing people gab constantly is just annoying. So I simply picked up the pace and passed these types with gusto and luckily by the time I turned around the pack had spread out so I had peace and quiet.
I had not planned to set any goals for this race, but couldn’t help keeping 1 hr 30 mins in the back of my mind, essentially 9 minute miles. I started out mile one right at 9 minutes and mile two was exactly 18 minutes, so weird! Then I started shaving off a few seconds each mile, I wish I had a Garmin to see what each mile time was, but then I started to become obsessed with it as opposed to listening to my body and I felt myself slow a bit around mile 7. Still I was on pace to come in under 90 minutes. When I reached mile 9 I decided to go all out so I lengthened my stride to see how I felt, I decided I could keep this up no problem. Then I could see the finish so I really kicked it up and sprinted in, the clock ticked to 1 hr 30 minutes right when I crossed. Official time was 1 hr 29 min 54 seconds. Overall for females I was 57 out of 199 and 4th out of 16 in my age group! I was 14 seconds slower then the 3rd place girl but I think they only gave out awards to the top finishers.
After I finished I wait for Scottie and our tri friend Doug to finish then we walked over to the race site where I saw Chik-fil-a sandwiches! I made a bee line for it and grabbed my free one, I inhaled it and it certainly satisfied my growing hunger. We chatted a bit but the wind was picking up plus we had a brunch to attend. A few of our fellow triathletes put together an informal brunch after the race, it was nice to put a face to the screenname and to just chat in general to like minded (crazy minded!) people. Overall a great Saturday morning!
October 28th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Haha, you gave those women a ‘chic hit’. Good one! Great race, you will rock at your marathon!