Take 2.
I had a choice to make this weekend: Pumpkin Spice 15k, or FWRC Half. Honestly, I would have liked to have raced in both, but, with family commitments, a choice had to be made.
I'd set a "still standing" PR at the 15k distance in this race last year, and, knew what to expect. As a result, I had race plan for this one, and wanted to challenge my PR. As per usual, my plan flew out the window quickly. More on that later.
I had some lower back and knee pain late in the week, but, my last few training runs had felt pretty good. Since Austin, I'm only training about 4 days a week, mostly short runs. I suspect that the bike will remain shelved for a bit, and, I'll begin to mix some pool time back in soon.
Back to the race: I knew several folks racing in this one, including: Debbie, Jan, Jason, Leon, Carl. It's always fun to race with friends.
My plan was to hold a 9:30 pace for the 1st 10k, with hopes of speeding up for the last 5k. The temperature had turned cold overnight, with race day temps in the low 40's to start, so, a thermal undershirt, beanie, and running gloves would be necessary.
I arrived at the race site a little after 7, picked up my packet, prepped, and visited with a few friends. I did a little stretching pre-race, and, when the horn sounded, we were off. The course had been re-routed slightly from last year, to avoid TCU football game traffic, but, it was still a good route.
My 1st few mile splits were slower than I'd planned on, but, I still felt good about my ability to speed up late in the race. Miles 1 - 5 were: 9:45, 9:53, 9:45, 9:52, 9:33. I'd fallen into a comfortable pace, and was beginning to speed up bit. I had seen a few friends at this point, including Jan and Debbie. Again, seeing race buddies makes for a fun race.
Unfortunately, I'd needed to pee since early in the race. Inexplicably, there had not been a single port-a-let on the course through the turnaround at mile 5ish. Unreal. I finally ran off the course at about mile 6 to the port-a-let by Woodshed. My timing was terrible, as someone had just entered it when I got there. I burned nearly 3 minutes there, and had some catching up to do. Mile 6: 11:50. I pushed to run harder, and passed several people that I had already passed earlier in the race. Miles 7 - 9: 9:10, 9:17, 9:16. I found someone to pace with that kept me pushing down the stretch. My last .4 (I'd extended the route slightly on my trek to the port-a-let) was at a 8:16 pace.
I'd missed my PR, and would actually be over 1:30. Total time 1:31:55. 10 of 13 in my AG and 119 of 277 overall.
Hard to feel good about this one, as it should have been a better day. As a side note, I didn't see port-a-lets provided by the race organizers until mile 8. Unreal.
I hung out afterwards with Debbie and Jan and had a couple of beers and then headed home, as I had turkey trot packet pick up duty in the afternoon.
As for the Pumpkin Spice 15k, I'm not sure that I'll be back.
Next up, Trot 10k on Thursday.
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