The Summer of the 10K

Well now, that was a fun little race.

So about a month or so ago, one of my running friends emailed me with a Schwaggle for a 10K in Oakland for $15.  Seemed fun enough -- run in a different place, races are fun, gave us an excuse to get new shirts, etc. so that's what we decided to do.

So Saturday morning found me doing my third 10K in 5 weeks.  The race was at Lake Merritt which is in downtown Oakland -- who knew there was a lake in the middle of the city !  We managed to find the starting point while the race crew were setting up.  This was just a very small race put on by this company who do small races in San Diego, Orange County and now up here (they are, however, going to put on a larger half in April in Hollywood which might just show up on the schedule!).  Anyhow, they are super nice folks and put on a great with some sponsors onsite and a fun goodie bag that included a tree in a box in place of a t-shirt.

But this was it:

I think it totaled about 140 people.

The guy who ran the show made some announcements over a bull horn and was going to lead the faster runners around the lake on his bike while shooing the geese out of the way!

So around the lake twice we go -- nothing too exciting to report on that front.  Places were established fairly on and we all just ran.  I started out a bit too quickly -- but managed to pull back within the first mile and then just felt pretty good throughout the race.  From the third mile on, I managed to just slowly catch people -- but not that many -- there were tons of fasties at this race.

But here I am (in the middle) getting ready to take someone!!

And that's me finishing (they posted a bunch of pics on their FB site -- cool!).  I'm actually smiling and feeling just fine.   Though I do have funny form and have to stop hunching forward so much -- that's a fairly good pic but some are just bad.  

Anyway, I did well.  My time was 51.47 which was a PR (previous fastest 10k was last years Turkey Trot at 52.54) and was well below the Jungle Run 5 weeks ago which was 53.26 -- and we won't count Wharf to Wharf).  So I was extremely pleased.  But the best was yet to come!   We had hung around long enough that it was announced that they were going to post times.  

That's the back of my head (which amuses me) reading my time.  And wouldn't you know, I'd won my age group!!!!!  Like #1.  I was so excited!.  There were only 9 in my age group but still!!!   So we stayed for the awards to be announced (there was small money for 1st, 2nd and 3rd).

And then finally my name was announced!!!  Since I was there with 6 other girls, I had a cheering committee which made it that much more fun.  The prize was a t-shirt and that was just fine with me -- I didn't care if there was a prize or not, I just liked having my name first.

This is me modeling my t-shirt later on (after we were home).

The race was a fast one though.  Despite my age group win, I was rather slow in comparison.  I was 56/140 overall.  But since all the fasties were youngsters it all worked out.  However, the woman who won the 50's age group was 6 seconds faster than me.  So sigh - I don't think it gets easier.

I was quite bummed that I didn't have my watch set properly either so I don't have my splits.  I'm mostly positive I didn't run negative splits but was really looking forward to see how I did.  Doing these three 10k's in the middle of half marathon training was really good.  It gave me more experience racing and the distance isn't anything that requires serious recovery but I learned so much each time.  At the end of this race, I really could have gone around the lake again, but I would have had to drop down to a much slower time so I'm still not sure if I was effective -- like I should have pushed even harder.

I also love these little small races -- and I will run this one again because the people who put it on were just fantastic.  For anyone in Cali (and in SoCal really) go here and see some of their other events.  The website isn't the best but the link to the Hollywood Half works.

And these are some of my running girls:

The event was to promote green awareness and we were told to wear green -- well as you can see by the first pic, not everyone got the memo, but they were impressed we did (hey, there are 3 accountants in this group - we know how to follow rules!!) so the race director started calling us 'the girls with the cool shirts'.  The shirts are very lime and we have our team name printed on the back.

Anyway, it was all in very good fun.