Today, well tomorrow, marks my 1 Year Runniversary of more serious running. Last year I ran Allerton with Jen and Marissa and had a blast in our pink tutus. This year I tried it solo and for the first time ever, raced.
I met up with Mike (pace leader from the marathon) before the race and asked him about his goal time. He was hoping to keep at least a 9:30 pace and I was excited to hear that.
After the race got started, I tagged along and kept close to him as he aggressively passed MANY runners. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have been stuck behind people and would have been no where near a finish pace of 9:30. I am not too familiar with trail racing so the single track parts were interesting. We exerted a lot of energy in the first two miles running between 8 min and 8:30 min. miles and I was worried I would be pooped before the race was over.
Fortunately people started settling into their paces and we were able to get to our comfortable pace as well. Mile 2-4 were still hard though because I was much more tired than I thought because of the speedy first 2 miles.
There were quite a few more ups and downs than I remember from last year. I really gave it my all and have never done that before. The finish could not come soon enough and I really thought I was going to pass out with only .5 miles left. I had no kick in the final stretch and was passed in the last 30 seconds by about 5 people. Nonetheless, I came in around 52:40, which is about 10 minutes faster than last years time. My Garmin also registered a course of 5.69 miles instead of the 5.5 miles it is listed as. I think it is partly because of my weaving in and out to pass people in the early miles.
Mike and I visited afterwards and enjoyed a donut from the wonderful food station provided by racers. They encourage racers to bring an item to share, needless to say, I mooched and didn't bring anything this year.
*Note to self, bring something next year.
