Purity Dairy Dash 10k Race Report!

Just to not keep you in suspense, today's 10k was awesome and I finished and had no knee pain! AH! I'm so excited and thrilled.

Back it up to this morning. I really couldn't sleep last night and woke up every few hours to look at the clock and flip over. I ended up getting up at 6:45 to get ready and head downtown. The race didn't start until 8:15 but I took a nap yesterday and forgot to pick up my race packet... oops. I just had a piece of toast with almond butter and a small banana to hold me over. I'm still a little iffy on pre and post race fueling as my stomach doesn't like most things when I run but this seemed to work out alright.

The 5 and 10k started right on time, surprisingly. Since everyone started together, it was a bit slow getting out, but they had the 4 lane road closed so it started to thin out after about a half mile. However, once we got to about mile 2, that course changed to a narrow paved trail that could only fit about 3 people wide, so it was a pretty close pack for that portion. As usual, I hated the first 2 miles and wondered why I was doing this, but once I warmed up, everything felt great. My main goals for the event were to finish (see: Clarksville 2009) and to have a negative split. At the 5k mark, I was at about 32:30. Unfortunately, I forgot to set the auto lap on my Garmin so I don't have actual splits, but I remember checking this one. Since everything felt great at that point, I started to pick it up a bit, especially since I wanted to make my negative split!

Once we passed mile 4, it turned into a regular 4 lane road again, so the pack opened up a bit. For the last mile, I was running at about a 9:20-25 pace, and then for the last quarter mile, I picked it up to about a 7:45 (you can do anything for 2 minutes, right?), pulling in to finish at about 1:02!! The second 5k ended up being about 29:30 minutes, so I met both my goals! I was trying to not puke (so elegant, I am) and forgot to stop my watch, so I'm curious to see what the chip time was. I also hope that I got a good race photo! It was about at mile 5 and I tried not to look like I was suffering. :)

Anyway, all in all, it was a great race. My legs felt good, the course was nice and flat, and the weather was perfect. It was actually in the 30's this morning so I wore a long sleeve shirt and tights, but I ended up being a bit hot. Weather.com had said it wouldn't pass 40 degrees by 10am, but it was about 55 when I finished. Shorts definitely would have been more comfortable. I also brought my fuel belt because I wasn't sure what the water stops would be like, but they ended up working out fine and I barely used the water in my belt. Nice to know for next 10k because its kinda heavy and bulky if I can get away with not having one.

Lastly, my only main complaint was the post race celebration. It seemed like most people really enjoyed it, but they were serving bbq and mac&cheese and ice cream sandwiches. Just the smell of it made my stomach turn, so I grabbed a water, banana and a luna bar, and left. Yick. I don't know how people can eat such heavy food right after running hard. It took about 2 hours for my stomach to willingly accept solid food. All together, amazing experience and I'm so happy that both IT bands feel good. I plan doing some more ice and foam rolling later, but right now, all is great!

In closing, I also ran with EN on Wednesday (5.6 miles) and then did a short run (2.9) on Thursday. Nothing terribly exciting with either, but the EN hills were nasty, which I guess is appropriate. :) Off to eat again!