I cannot believe I ran in a race this weekend.
TLDR: it is not a PR course, and I was not up for running to PR the course. I will run it again next year, and maybe race myself and PR the course.
Longer Story:
Since 2020 I seem to have more challenges with long term planning and time getting away from me. In September when the kids got to go back to school full time, I thought I would have enough flexibility to get in long runs, and I was eyeing a fall half. My pandemic running in 2021 has consisted of squeezing in 3-4 mile runs 3-4x a week and sometimes up to 5, so I thought a 10K was already doable, but the half would be a bit of a challenge- mostly of time management. The local marathon that is usually run in the spring was postponed to the fall, and having run the 10K before and found it to be well run & convenient to my home, I think this is always a good race choice for me. The first and last miles are on my normal running loop, but the rest is a hilly combo of town, campus/hospital area, and the arboretum. It is
not a PR course. It is beautiful, but lots of ups and downs. I cannot imagine why anyone would run this as a marathon
As I care little for medals or shirts, I thought I would wait and sign up after seeing how things progressed. Life got in the way, and the time I thought would materialize for running did not. Two weeks before the race I decided I was going to run, but as my longest recent run had been only 6 miles, I stuck with the 10K. But I kept forgetting to register. I finally did so from my tiny phone screen the day before the race. I got to the expo (I did not stay long but was surprised it did have tables, maybe half as many as previous years) to pick up my bib and they
handed me a bib for the half. I panicked and was pointed to a very long line which was for relay check ins, fixing/transferring registrations. After 25 minutes in line I was
really tempted to just keep the bib and run or walk whatever race I felt like. But I waited and swapped bibs with a very polite and helpful staff member.
Sunday I was a bit panicky and convinced this was a terrible idea as I do not love racing, and I could just as easily run 6.2 miles all by myself. I got on my bike to ride to the start a little later than I should have, heard them sending the marathoners out when I was still 3 blocks away. The 10k/5K corral looked not as full as previous years and seemed to skew younger. About 20% had on masks in the corral, we all could have stuck our arms out and not touched anyone so there was a good amount of space until we took off for the slightly more narrow chute. The first 2.5 miles were pavement, then we got to the hilly trails, a nice flat (all too short) along the very misty river, back up the trail on different hills, and back through town to the finish. I was pretty convinced this would be the slowest 10K ever, but the last mile-ish is downhill so my mile splits were not even close to predictive of how I would finish. This company has some of the better finish lines locally, and while it was scaled back it was still a solid festive atmosphere. I skipped the medal and pancakes, grabbed a banana and bag of chips for my kids to fight over, and biked home to get ready to take the kiddos to their sporting events.
In the end, I was a minute faster than the first time I ran the course, and a minute slower than the last time (2019). I knew I was taking it easy in a couple of spots, and I was fine with it, but I also thought it was not possible to PR the course. If I had been in a headspace to think about it from the start and have some strategy about the hills instead of just taking them as they came, I could have PRed the course. I appreciated the spectators (and students cheering from the top of their dorms and houses), the signs telling me where to turn, and the Ted Lasso quotes peppering the trail side. I suppose I could run the course on my own next weekend and see if I did better, but I will probably fall back into my normal route where I do not have to think about where to turn or not. I will run it again when it goes back to the spring. In looking at the finish times, there 20% were fewer people than previously, but my age group was 2x the size as previous. All of those people must also be faster, because I fell from being middle of the pack to being at the tail end, with essentially the same race time.

The same company is putting on a 10 K on a flat loop in two weeks, which is tempting me to think I might actually like to race myself on that one.