First Dates with 10ks

One down, one to go!

So it wasn't the worst first date with a 10k. It was, however, a little misleading.  You know when someone posts a Brad Pitt-like picture and they are like "this is my profile picture.  I really do look like this."  And then when you meet them in person, you think they probably should have posted a picture of Steve Buscemi instead.  Because that would have been more realistic.  No offense to Steve; I bet he's really nice.

Anyway.  So the 10k wasn't really a 10k.  It was like a 6.4-6.9 miler depending on whose GPS who choose to believe.  Which actually kinda makes me happy.  My splits for an actual 10k were about 10.02, but since it wasn't really a 10k, that means I had sub 10 minute mile splits.  Yay me!  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that whatever time you would normally run a road race at, add at least a minute to your mile pace when you are doing trail races. They are hard.

Here's the down low with the race.  I had no idea where the course was going to go.  My plan was to make sure there was always someone in front of me that I could follow.  This ended up being the best plan in the world.  There were a lot of people who took wrong turns.  I guarantee you I would have been one of those people had I not made sure I was following someone at all times.  But the race itself was so much fun!  Trail running requires so much mental power (step here, watch out for that branch, jump over that log, etc) that you almost forget to be tired. It was a total brain workout. The end was the worst.  The last couple of miles were all up hill, down hill, up, down, up, down.  Really short and steep uphills and really short and steep downhills.  Of course, by this time your legs and brain are about fried which make trail running even harder.  A lady bit it right in front of me and I tried to help her up.  She totally ignored my attempt (jerk!) so I made it a point to run past her.  So mature, I know. Then karma hit and I almost bit it twice in a very short period of time. 

Next 10k is the Chili Pepper Cross Country 10k tomorrow morning. I've always wanted to run it so I'm really excited!  It's been raining all day today so it'll be interesting to see how crazy the course ends up being.  My goal is to run 9:30 splits. Woohoo!