As mentioned before, I have found myself participating in many of the FWRC events lately. As a result, I receive all of their promotional email about upcoming events.
It just so happened that I had two opportunities for a 15k this weekend. Cox running was hosting a 15k challenge at Martin House on Saturday, and, FWRC was hosting this event on Monday.
I contemplated both events, as there were pros and cons to both. The Cox event was Saturday, and was at Martin House, both appealing factors. However, they were not offering finisher medals, and, it was truly 2 separate races, a 5k and 10k, with the challenge being to do both. The FWRC event was Monday, which presented a challenge, as my fantasy football draft was on Sunday night in Dallas. typically, the FF draft leads to beer drinking. Ultimately, I chose the FWRC event due to format, location (Lukes), tech shirt, medal, etc.
I'd been dealing with significant back pain since Thursday, so, was a bit anxious about the run.
It had been quite some time since I had completed this distance. although my training had been calling for longer runs, the heat and my schedule had prevented me from completing anything longer than 6 miles. I was curious to see how I would hold up.
This is clearly FWRC's signature event, as it is priced a bit higher, packet pick up was a Lukes, it offered tech shirts, 15k finisher medals, and hosted about 900 runners between the 5k and 15k.
I arrived to a warm, but not overwhelmingly hot morning. However, it was quite humid. I got out to about a 9:30 pace, and, after about a mile or 2 of warm up, felt pretty good. I was hoping for a sub 1:30 finish time.
I realized a few miles in that today might not be the day. The humidity was causing many runners to sweat through their shirts early on. I could tell that it had been quite some time since I'd run this far. I held a decent pace through about 6 miles, and hoped to speed up a bit for the last 5k. However, it wasn't going to happen. Miles 7-9 for me were painfully slow. The sun, humidity and increasing heat were taking a toll.
This course fed us from Lukes to the Duck Pond, onto the trail, with a turnaround near 30 / University, down the trail to Panther Island, out towards White Settlement, with a turnaround at about 6 miles, then back down the trail to 7th and back to Lukes. This course was mostly flat until we headed out towards White Settlement Rd., where we had 5 hills to deal with.
While I missed my target time of 1:30, I was pleased to finish the distance. I have some work to do as I get closer to the 70.3 and half marathons coming up. I may target the Tour des Fleurs 20k in a few weeks as a test.
The final stats: 9.3 in 1:37:57. Slow, but, done.
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