Des Moines Women’s Race(s) Recap
Part 2 aka 10K Recap
Y’all it’s been so long I barely even remember this race so we’ll see how this goes
Apologies for the delay. I really thought I was going to post this early last week but travel and a few other priorities got in the way. (Btw, I had a job interview today for a role that I’m really excited about so send good vibes
)
Goals seem like a good place to start. While I was happy with my new 10K PR a few weeks ago, it felt like I had more left in the tank so my goal was to set another 10K PR ( <48:45). There were a few things going against me however. Mostly, my legs
. They were still beat up from my ill timed return to strength training and also now had 80% of a 5K in them. Additionally, I really wanted an age group award. The half marathoners earn a bottle of wine but the 10K crew only receives wine glasses. Eventually, I want one of those wine bottles but I may need to get a bit faster first
As mentioned, the race is nearby. This year there was a new route which nearly threw a wrench in my tradition of biking to the start. The winery doesn't have enough car parking on site so they have folks park off-site and shuttle them in. This works reasonably well but there are typically delays at the start as they wait for the last shuttles to arrive and clear the roads. To mitigate this, the start was moved to the off-site parking location, eliminating the need for a pre race shuttle. Kudos to them for finding a solution and trying something new.
Anyway, I didn't want to require a shuttle ride back to my bike post race so I wasn't interested in riding my bike to the start. The new start was only 2 miles from my house (instead of 1.5) so I thought about running my warm up to the start. The problem with this solution is that I really didn't want to run or walk home after my post race celebration. Eventually I realized that I could still bike to the winery (I.e. the finish area) and run my warm up from there. This ended up being about a mile and mostly uphill
. Once I arrived, I found a relatively flat spot and did some strides and then found my way to the starting area.
Maybe I’m biased because I love my town, but I really loved this pretty start line view
Another bonus of the new start is that I didn’t have to run that uphill from my warm up during the race and the first quarter mile had a nice downhill.
My pace goal was 7:45 per mile. I expected some variation but that was the overall plan to get me that new pr.
My paces are listed below. First and second were right on target. Third mile was slow but I wasn’t worried. I still had half the race and knew I had some wiggle room for the PR. I barely remember miles 4 & 5
. At the end of mile 5, my partner was on course cheering. After I passed him, he rode his bike alongside the course for ~100m and remarked that I was going so fast he could barely keep up. I really appreciated the comment but couldn’t respond because all my energy was focused on hanging on to a potential new PR.
The 10K and half courses didn’t split until 5.5 miles. I liked this because it kept the course crowded enough that I was never running alone. The only downside of this location is that it was immediately followed by a sharp left turn into a tunnel so there was limited visibility into how I was doing place wise.
Officially, my time was 48:19
. Unfortunately, my gps only registered 6.19 miles
. I’m conflicted on if this counts as a new PR or not. What do you think? As you can see, garmin calculated my avg pace as 7:51 and it was 7:47 for the race a few weeks prior. Because of this, I’m reluctant to say it’s a new PR but it is darn close and I’m happy with the result. You can see I was really pushing at the end, maybe next time I’ll give a lean to really get every last fraction of a second
After the race I enjoyed some snacks and wine while I waited for the awards ceremony. The awards ceremony turned into “please collect your glass from the table inside” but it was a nice excuse to hang out in the nice weather a little longer. My time was good enough for 2nd in my AG. To earn a wine bottle, I would have needed a 1:42 HM time. That’s 4 minutes faster than my PR but doesn’t seem totally out of reach.
Once I finally returned home, I shared my medals with the doggies. They were not impressed but I still love them.
.
