Ever had one of those days when you feel everything is just going right? Well Saturday was one of those days.
My training schedule last week got blown up with a slight ankle sprain after my last half marathon and a business trip to Utah. Did the RICE protocol on the ankle for Monday-Wednesday then didn’t get any running in Thursday and Friday due to business. We got back to Florida at 1:30AM Saturday morning and had to be up for the Scrub Jay 10K at 5:15AM.
This is a great event and the only trail 10K race I run all year. It is held at Oscar Scherer State Park and the organizers do a great job of mixing up the surfaces – asphalt, hard packed trail, sand and grassy pathways. Of course, being in Florida, it is flat so no hills to contend with.
My goal going in was just to run this as a training run since I didn’t expect much energy after the early morning arrival. Once the race started I guess adrenaline kicked in. I ran the first mile in 9:11. This felt a comfortable pace and the surfaces helped cushion my feet so I thought “Let’s see how far we can take this”. Upon review I managed some neat negative splits through mile 4 (9:11, 8:55, 8:50, 8:41) and even at the sandy part of the trail didn’t lose much time. Ended up with a time of 54:14 which was a new personal best at the 10K distance and good enough for 1st place in my age group.
On the lighter side, I probably could have beaten 54:00 if I hadn’t had my shorts’ elastic waistband give out on me. This required some adjustment at various points during the race. Thank goodness my shorts were 2N1s and the compression shorts kept them up. Otherwise I could have suffered from a case of the Sagging Pants.
This race was a good confidence booster. Hopefully now I can get my schedule back on track.
Running Longer 