Better late than never: RRCA 10 mile

It only took me 3 1/2 weeks, but here's report on the RRCA 10 mile club run that was held in Columbia on Feb 22nd.   Writing this up has been on my "to-do" list for 2 weeks, and since I ran a 10 mile PR, I feel obligated to share with everyone :)

I woke up to a brisk February morning with a weather report that threatened snow.  Secretly, I was a little excited for 2 reasons - 1) i've only run in the snow once (with Ken on RCT a few weeks earlier) and 2) snow = a good excuse for wearing my magic tights!   I met up with Emaad at his house, and we start the drive to Columbia, stopping at Mark's house and picking him up on the way.  As we drive up to Columbia, I'm looking at the overcast sky, wondering when it's going to snow, and am absolutely loving the heated seats in Emaad's car!  

We arrive at the RRCA 10 mile, get our bib numbers, check in and who do we run into? Wayne! We chat for a little while, and pretty soon, it's time to go outside and run the race.  Here's a picture from before the start - these guys make me feel short! :)

While waiting for the race start, we find Caren and Christina (who kindly notes that I should not be running after running the marathon the weekend prior ... whoops!).  Mark runs with Caren and Emaad, while Wayne and I set a pretty quick pace from the start.  

A couple quick notes on the race course - I would definitely call it a challenging 10 mile course. Lots of ups and downs, and a couple of hills that we pretty intense.  Not as challenging as the Turkey Burnoff 10 mile in Seneca Creek State Park, but definitely not a course to sneeze at! My hamstrings were still pretty tight from last weekend's marathon, and they started loosening up after a few miles.  Wayne and I stay together for the first 5 miles of the race, and then he told me if I wanted to PR (previous PR = 1:32 at Turkey Burnoff 10 mile), I would have to leave him. I ran the next 3 miles of the race solo, and while running uphill into the wind, it started snowing! Crazy snow was coming down at mile 8.  Soon after that, I caught up with Mical Honingfort and ran with her for the last 2 miles of the race.  She edged me out at the end of the run, but I was really happy with my new 10 mile PR of 1:28:50!  

Splits from the run:

Mile 1:  9:48

Mile 2:  7:23 (I think mile 1 was too long and mile 2 was too short...)

Mile 3:  8:51

Mile 4:  9:07

Mile 5:  8:16

Mile 7:  17:36 (8:45 average ... I missed the mile 6 marker!)

Mile 8:  9:22

Mile 9:  10:52

Mile 10: 7:32 (Again, mile 9 was too long, mile 10 was too short!)

After finishing, I grabbed my soft pretzel (which were amazing!!), and watched Wayne come in around 1:32; Emaad, Caren and Mark come in around 1:44, and Christina around 2:00 - great runs for everyone! :)