Friday, September 13, 2013

Franklin Classic 10k

Labor Day weekend is the anniversary for my wife and I so we were really excited about it coming around this year. We didn't have any big plans since we were traveling to Florida the following weekend. Saturday WKU and UK played at Titans stadium so that filled up our Saturday evening. Franklin, TN is also a host to an annual 10k that is run every year and Casey and I figured it would be a good little fitness test since we are both running a half marathon at the end of October. It is a unique event as they have a 10k and a 5k. The 10k startst at 7am and the 5k at 8:45 giving you the option to run both. I did consider this but decided it probably wasn't the best idea in the world.

It played out just like any other summer road race. We woke up, had a small breakfast with coffee, then drove over to Franklin to pick up our race bibs, get warmed up, and race. We didn't really need to warm up much considering the early morning heat and humidity. With a PR under 33 minutes, but having no idea what kind of current fitness I had, I wasn't sure what to expect out of the race. I was almost certain it was a fairly flat course, but I was wrong. It had some flat sections, but was pretty rolling the whole way.

At 7, the gun went off. I followed a few guys and wanted to hang with the leaders for as long as possible. In the previous 3 years, the winner has been anywhere from 32:00 - 35:30 so I wasn't sure how fast I would have to run to win. This year, winning was out of the question. The winner ended up running sub 32 so I didn't stay with him for very long. I ended up running in 4th-6th place for the first part of the race. We ran together and were holding 5:25 - 5:30 pace for the first 5k. It did not feel as easy as I would have liked, but I thought I could hold this for the race. I was wrong. The heat started to really wear me down and my pace started to slow after 5k. I ran a 5:35 mile for the 4th mile, then the last 2 miles were in the 5:50 range. When the wheels fell off, they fell hard. 4th and 5th place ran away from me and I finished 6th in just under 35 minutes. I think it was 34:52 ish. Definitely hoping to be faster, but the hills and heat took their toll, and if I would have paced a tad better, I think I might have been able to run about 20-30 seconds faster. I went out expecting to run faster, and that got me in trouble since I'm not in that kind of shape right now.

But, it means that I can only go up from here. It provided me a little fuel for the fire and have about 7-8 weeks to work hard before the half marathon. I just returned from Florida and a nice relaxing extended weekend vacation. I woke up early, got the work done for the day, and enjoyed the beach, food, and company the rest of the day. I did hit 74 miles last week which I believe is my 2nd most ever in my life. I didn't even try to run a lot of miles, it was just how the workouts planned added up. And having that 10k on Monday did add a few extra miles that I normally don't run on Mondays.

After the race on Labor Day, we had breakfast at Panera, then J. Alexander's for dinner for our anniversary dinner with our wedding cake for dessert. It was still really good so we chowed down on some cake. Casey did a fantastic job at wrapping the cake and freezing it so that it didn't get freezer burn.