Heels and Hills 10k

I never planned on running the Heels and Hills race - no matter the distance.  It never occurred to me to register for anything less than a half marathon, and I didn't want to run 13.1 on that particular Sunday afternoon because 1) I had to work that afternoon and B) I'm running 13.1 the following weekend.  However, an opportunity arose to jump in last minute on the 10k and I thought, "Hey, why not?  It's been a long time since I raced that distance and it'll give me a reason to get up and get some miles in."  NOTE: I'm not going into detail about how I got in, but I'd like to take this opportunity to say thanks to Carol Creech and Libby Jones - you ladies rock!

So I woke up bright and early, slipped into my running clothes, ate breakfast and was out the door.  Nothing too eventful, it's just a 10k, right?  Las Colinas is a great area to have a smaller race like this one.  The parking was easy and free, I didn't even mind the forecasted thunderstorms.  And an added bonus was the temperature - 70 degrees and dropping!  One of the beautiful things about the smaller races is that on race day, it's much easier to run into friends .. and the good thing about having running friends?  Running into them on race day ;)

I hung around with Michelle K - running the half - until it was her time to start, then it was my turn.  I was standing in line for the port-o-potty when the "gun" went off for the 10k, so I jumped out of line to get going.  Not sure that was the best idea, but everything "came out ok" in the end ... again, sorry to all you non-runners reading this.  Poop jokes are inevitable. 

Ok.  So.  About 1.5 miles in, I realized I was passing people.  This usually happens in longer distances because I don't register myself in the correct corral.  But I was actually passing people.  "Must be because I started about a minute or so after the official GO."  Turns out, starting late is a big ego boost and mental push!!  I passed everyone.  ANOTHER NOTE:  don't get too excited for me just yet.  The people who start in the back are generally people who run at a 12min/mile or walkers .. and I started running AFTER them.  I was running this race without my Galloway intervals (I'll explain later), so I wasn't expecting to do too well.  But it occurred to me that the only person I WASN'T passing was a girl running intervals.  Go figure.  Then about mile 4 or so, a group of women smoked me, but that's ok.  I'd passed so many already I figured I was probably in the mix of those in my pace group.  Cool.  I might not be in the "passing zone" anymore, but I wasn't gonna be road kill.  I'll spare you the rest of the details, but in the end, I didn't let anyone else pass me, and I even caught up with one of the 4 women that got me earlier. 

The last 10k I ran was the Tour de Fleurs in 2009 in 1:17:44 (12:30ish min/mile).  On Sunday at Heels and Hills 10k, a year and a half later?  1:06:49!!  A PR of almost exactly 11 minutes.  Satisfaction. 


with Michelle K after watching her cross the half mary finish!!



Post Race Introspection
Now, I can see some possible frustration on your part as a reader.  An 11 minute PR is awesome, but that still only makes my pace a 10:47, which is pretty close to an 11, which is still not exactly fast.  Me?  I prefer to see it as closer to 10:30, which is still not exactly fast, but still not far from a 10.  In fact, on March 5th, during the Texas Independence Relay, I ran 6.03 miles in 1:03:28, which is pretty much a 10:30 pace.  And on a training run earlier that week, I ran 3ish miles at a 10:15 pace .. both of which were with a 3:1 run/walk interval.  This means my run was actually in the 9s in order to have an average in the 10s.  This intrigues me ... more on that later.