28 March 2009

2009 Ukrop's 10K

It's done. I ran with 32,600+ of my closest friends today. This is a big race and the goal is to continue to see it grow. Whew! But, this is a well run race and Runner's World listed it as a must run in their March issue.

The elites took off at 8:30 -- I don't know who was here this year. Wave A took off at 8:31. I ran in wave B at 8:33 -- we were actually a couple of minutes early according to my watch. The temperature at start was 46° with a bit of a breeze out of the west. Heavy cloud cover but no rain. Just about perfect conditions for running.

My goal was to break 45:00 but really thought that 46:30 was more realistic. I finished in 46:46.59 (my watch -- official results will be out later today). Splits were:
1.0 x 7:27.21
1.0 x 7:25.97
1.0 x 7:25.46
1.0 x 7:22.35
1.0 x 7:44.00
1.0 x 7:49.16
0.2 x 1:32.44
So, I'm reasonably pleased. Interesting that I came so close to what I thought I was really capable of this year. The 6th mile was really tough. My body kept screaming, "WALK!" but I just wasn't willing to give in and kept looking for that 6 mile marker.

After I finished, I grabbed a bottle of water, a bottle of Poweraide, a bagel, and a banana. The bagel was way too dry and dense to eat then so one bite was it. The banana went down much better. Then I hit the Porta-Johns and headed back to the start to try to catch my wife and daughter (Linda and Stacey) before their wave started. Downed a Gu on the way and finished about 3/4 of the water.

Linda and Stacey had had to look for a parking place, so they had gotten to their wave group about 10 seconds before I got there. I jumped the barrier and waited to run again with them. We completed in 1:24:57. The first mile was in 11:35.85 -- the fastest mile they've run. You go, ladies! It was fun running as a family, at least 60% of our family (Stephen and Anna, you need to run a race with us).

All in all, a good day!

Run well, y'all,
Bob

4 comments:

Mark said...

Great run, Bob! Way to keep pushing. I'd never heard of this particular race? Congrats on a great time!

david said...

That's a GREAT time!.... wish I could run that fast!

Mel-2nd Chances said...

Amazing time! Congrats!! :) I wish I could run that fast too! :D

Bob A said...

Thanks, y'all. I appreciate the encouragement.