Riverside Genesis 10k Race Recap

Oh. Hi there.

Pardon the lull in posting this past week. I may or may not have been waterparkin' it up with these two little goobers.

But, but, when I got back from my week-long hiatus, I had a 10k race facing me. (We won't even get into the ridiculously hot and tiny workout room at the hotel or the parents who brought their children in to play around on the machines.) I had kind of taken it easy in the two weeks between my half and this race, and I was a little on the nervous side that I had lost some of my speed and endurance.

Going into the race, I set three goals for myself:

Goal #1:	48:00 (7:43 min/mi)
Goal #2:	46:00 (7:24 min/mi)
Goal #3:	Top 5 in Age Group

McMillian "Goal": 48:55 (7:52 min/mi)

Even though I was feeling slightly under-prepared, the day of the race came, and the weather was slightly chilly, but still great. I had specifically picked out this race based on the fact it was almost completely flat and ran along the river giving a nice scenic view. Perfect for a nice fast race.

Unlike my previous two races, Adam and my parents were going to participating with me (in the 5k) which was kind of a nice change. We arrived at the race nice and early (around 8:00am for a 9:00am start) in order to pick up our race bibs and chips and hop in the port-a-potty before the line got too ridiculously long (which it did).

Soon enough, though, it was time to head to the start. Adam and I wiggled our way in closer to the start than usual (keying off my start from my half). Once the gun went off (or when they shouted "go!") we soon found we probably could have started even farther up.

After the usual bob & weave for the first half mile, I kind of fell in pace with the other runners around me, while Adam took off. I came through the 1 mile around 7:33 - right about where I wanted. I'm not exactly positive what compelled me to speed up like crazy during mile 2, but I knew after seeing 6:43 on the clock I had to slow down. My stomach was starting to act up a bit and I was terrified of getting horrible cramps. Another girl was running about my pace, just ahead of me, and I told myself to just keep up with her.

Miles 3 and 4 came in right under 8:00 minutes each, and I had pulled up next to the girl and we continued to run together up until the very end of the race. Luckily, my stomach cramps went away somewhere between mile 3 and 4, which was a huge sigh of relief.

We picked up the pace in mile 5, coming through in 7:39, but I could tell I wasn't going to be able to hang on to the pace for much longer. Somehow I managed to keep up with her for the remaining mile, despite feeling like I was losing my endurance, and fast.

I wasn't able to see the finish until I was well within a quarter mile, which made judging when to start my "kick" a little difficult. Not that there was much of one anyway. But I gave what I had left and crossed the line with a chip time of

46:57

I may have missed hitting goal #2, but I was more concerned with beating goal #1 since it was faster than I was expecting to be able to go.

As for goal #3. See, chip timing is a funny thing. I was super excited to find out when they posted the results by clock time that I had finished 3rd in my age group (out of 66). However, it wasn't until they were announcing the awards that a girl who started and finished behind me actually beat me by 1 stinking second, putting me into 4th. As bummed as I was that I wouldn't be taking home a medal, I'm still thrilled that I ended up in the top 5.

What I was even more excited about, is that I unofficially smashed my previous 5k post-college PR. I came through mile 3 at 22:10, and adding roughly another minute for the 0.1 puts me at 23:10 -- an entire minute faster than my previous PR of 24:09 from back in October. And that rivals some of my times from running cross-country in high school. Woot!