Race Reports, Kudos and Encouragement for July 27th, 28th and 29th Racers!

[Maherae]

yay, Sandy!! Great report, great race!

 

[Cindylou]

I'm back from my vacation so I've typed up a race report. Still need to catch up on what happened during the last week.

I ran the Blessing of the Fleet 10 mile road race in Narragansett, RI on Friday July 27th. The race started at 6 PM. There were 2400 runners and over 600 walkers. The walkers started an hour early, so they didn’t add to the crowd at the start. The temperature at race time was 80 degrees with high humidity. Since it was the first day of our week long vacation, I had spent the day packing and running last minute errands. I wasn’t as good at hydrating and fueling as I would have liked to have been.

This was the 36th annual running of the race. It seemed a very casual atmosphere. When you picked up your number you got a number and a T-shirt. There was no goodie bag, no time chip. About 2 minutes before the race started they allowed you out into the road to line up. There were no pace markers to gauge where you should start. The gun went off and we started. It was a very crowded race. I started about half way back in the pack. It took me almost a minute to get to the starting line.

My initial goal was to try to finish in under 90 minutes, but with the heat I worried that might not be possible. I changed my plan to run comfortably the first 6 miles then push it after that. I guess I wasn’t very good about following that plan. At about 3 miles I realized that I wasn’t comfortable. I definitely was pushing a bit, and I wondered if I’d be able to hold the pace for the whole 10 miles. I know part of the faster pace was because I was feeling a bit crowded so whenever I had an open space in front of me I pushed the pace a bit. The heat was tough. I haven’t had many warm weather runs this summer, so I was definitely feeling the heat. I carried a small water bottle with me, and at each of the water stops I would take a cup or two and refill my bottle. I really appreciated being able to sip water along the way.

Once I got past 6 miles, I realized that my 90 minute target was still within my reach as long as I could push the pace a little. I knew my family was waiting to cheer me on around 7.5 miles so that helped me keep the pace. After that I just concentrated on how good it would feel to achieve my time goal. I crossed the line in 1:29:08. An 8:55 min/mile pace. I was definitely hurting after the race, but I was very proud of pushing so hard. My splits were: 9:13, 8:55, 8:44, 8:52, 8:55, 8:53, 9:00, 8:41, 8:37, 8:14.