Hotcake Hustle 10K 1/17/15
My
time goals are for 5K and Long Du and didn’t involve 10K. Last year, my first 10K was at Cowtown, at the
end of February, so just to assure that I am ahead of running plans from last
year, I wanted to get first 10K race out of my system, before the spring
semester started. The area was
familiar. This neighborhood was the
first place I moved for the current job in 2005 with Pepper the Dog. Addison has a long strip of restaurants near
Convention Center and even has a small airport.
I hate driving to Dallas for a weekend race, but this would be close
enough for me to drive and possibly small enough not to freak me out.
Tony
woke up with me, but he was sneezing heavily, so he decided to stay home. After doing lots of events since last year,
there are a few things that I learned. I
like to arrive just when the race day registration opens up. With this timing, I don’t have to go crazy
over trying to find a parking spot. Also
this assures at least one good bathroom visit.
Speaking of bathroom visit, what I do before I leave home was honed,
too. I LOVE local Chinese place with
their fried rice, but it gets tricky on the race day morning. So Tony took me to sandwich and soup place
and I started off feeling good before I drove off home.
The
drive is only for 30 minutes, but I am still not fond of driving on North
Dallas Tollway. It curves like driving
games and has lots of ups and downs, too.
Luckily I didn’t miss the turn for Addison Circle and got in the first
parking structure. Took me a while to
find a parking that does NOT say, 2 hours or reserved for, and it was still
dark. I decided to go out and find a
bathroom and see what is going on. I
took a careful look at the area I parked and the exit was very close. I took a picture of entrance/exit and the
building on the corner. Then I hear my
name! Now the famous Spinervals model,
Lisa, spotted me from the car and called me.
I knew she was a fast runner and later I will find out she took the AG
win for 5K. It took a while, but I found
the event. People were already inside
the convention center and vendor booths were all set up. I used the bathroom and headed back to the
car, got the bib and water/telephone belt.
My clothing strategy was to wear packable jacket and gloves until the
last minute and leave them with bag check.
This was my grouch point of run race customs. Because there were no clear instructions at
Cowtown, I never used it. Well, Tony has
been with me, so I have been handing off whatever I don’t need to him at the
start line. Today I had to figure this
out. The moving sponsor company, who
takes care of bag check, had a big truck and I was happy. I walked, ran and went inside to do the
active warm up. Then went outside again,
ran long, ran short and looked at the bathrooms. Now the line was impossibly long! I saw off the start of Fun Run and cheered
Run on! Chicken.
Now
it is 5K/10K’s turn. It felt cold, but
the sun was coming out, so I trusted my clothing choice. We all start at the same timing and while 5K
finish off, 10K will go a little further and come back and do the same loop one
more time. I placed myself fairly up
front and warm up started. Most people
around me were participating. I took
extra care with stretching with my left leg.
Then at 8:30 promptly, the air horn sounded. We are off!
There was a fallen boy who was blocking a portion of street with other
adult members and then we made our first turn.
Literally all kinds of people are passing me. However this doesn’t bother me. They are probably running 5K and I have to
have 10K attitude. Besides, wise George
Fair advised me to have the watch show current pace. All I have to do is to keep my pace under
11:00 and cadence high, I should be able to PR.
Other than what I knew this course was in my old neighborhood, some
people mentioned that they had tough time on THE BRIDGE. Then it clicked. This is the bridge where one club ride had a
rider having a heart attack on the bike.
Luckily the group consisted with an EMT and a physician, they applied
CPR until ambulance came. That literally
saved his life and ever since then, the club arranges CPR classes on top of
group riding and traffic skills classes.
The bridge came maybe before the first mile. People rushed by me with race adrenaline are
slowing down and I saw some walking.
This first hill came innocent enough.
If I am riding, it would look a little intimidating from the distance,
but once I am not on it, I can actually climb with big chain ring, I
thought.
I
still can’t get over why people don’t thank officials and volunteers. Run on!
Chicken was the only one thanking and hugging volunteers and I yelled, “Good
Chicken!” I tried to thank anytime when I noticed and also took a long peace
sign in front of race photographers. I
saw first people came back maybe around 1 mile.
It is usual for me to see fast runners run double time from me. And they are probably doing 5K. I looked at the second screen once to check
my heart rate and it read 180. Oh, well,
this is a race after all. I could not
expect nice 140’s. The trick part of
this race course was that they only had ONE water station in the map, shortly
after the turn around at half way point for 5K.
So I had my full bottle belt with about 70% full water. Right at the turn around, there was a
particularly enthusiastic volunteer, a young girl. So I thanked her and told her that I would
come back one more time. Then I heard my name from the back. It was my former personal trainer, Jeff, and
his fiancée Ashley. I asked which
distance they were doing and I found out we are all doing 10K. The back side of the famous bridge was a
little more noticeable. But that meant I
am almost half way.
5K
people veered off to finish and now I notice smaller crowd continuing on. Sure enough, they didn’t have water station
even it is so close to the start/finish.
At this point, my arm warmer was coming off. I took a walk break and drank out of my
bottle and started notice two people.
One was a skinny young lady and dressed like professional runner, but I
can hear infamous Garmin beeps telling her that heart rate is too low. She was walking. Another one was a sturdy guy dressed mostly
in black and he looked like he can run faster.
But his cadence was lower and looked like bouncing. I was keeping an eye on them thinking maybe I
can make a goal of passing them towards the end. Some people with jacket were sweating by this
time. A group of three men passed and I
overheard one saying, 9:40. At the turn
around, I noticed the same girl and she was jumping up and down, dancing. I thanked her and said, “I told you I would
come back one more time.” And she said, “You did!” and the other girl started
to cheer louder, too. That gave me a little
strength to start the last quarter of the race.
By this time, I was afraid of getting overheated and took two cups of
water to pour on me and then ran out of volunteers who were giving water. So I stopped a little and drank from my
bottle and continued. Eventually the
bridge came again and now I am just staring at the ground, making sure to lean
and just keep my breathing. I was no longer waving to photographers. They must
be catching my grimace on my face. After
the bridge, I eased up a little and went for the final turn. This felt longer than when it first started,
but eventually I saw the finish line. I mustered
the final strength I had and crossed the finish line. Looked like there was a young girl, who just
finished ahead, passing me and she was high fiving with a young boy. My Garmin read 1:03 something, then quickly
displayed best 10K effort. I picked up the finisher mug and collected my
jacket and gloves. I didn’t bother free
pancakes there. I went home to Tony and
THEN we went for pancakes.
Good
race and my 10K PR, 1:03:48. Average
pace was 10:03 and 10th AG out of 39. Not too bad for start of the run year. THANK YOU, friends and spouse for cheering!
