It's time again for the Harvest Moon 10k and I feel confident that revenge shall by dealt on Bonita Paul if she shows up. I feel more confident in my fitness and want to somewhat redeem myself from the crappy race a few weeks back. I didn't have any time goals really but thought I would be able to break 37:00.
While this race last year had over 100 people, this year's had just 29 finishers. It was cold and misty, which is actually pretty decent 10k weather. When the race started, I got out relaxed and waited to see if anyone would push the pace. Before a race, it's easy to spot the really fast guys but since I wasn't in very good shape, anyone could surprise me.
No one really took the lead, so I took over and got in a groove. There was a cop on a bike leading me and I felt good from the get-go. Luckily this course was downhill for the first 1.5 miles but the course also included a lot of wooden bridges that were really slick. I slipped at the end of the second wooden bridge, which busted up my knee and after stopping to look at it for a few seconds, I was back on my way.
I was running a pretty steady pace but it was hard to push really hard because of all the slick bridges and being out-front alone. At the turn-around I saw no one was really close, so I just kept a steady effort so I wouldn't puke up the hill this year. The bike cop ended up crashing his bike on one of the bridges but I didn't laugh at him because I didn't want to get arrested.
I saw the steep incline sign and had flashbacks from last year where I completely died running up it but I felt surprisingly good. I crossed the finish line in 36:08 with a pretty steady effort. It was a motivating run because I felt like I could have run 35:00 if I really pushed myself and I also got a little bit of street cred from running on my busted-up, bloody knee.
Hopefully I can continue to train and race well and dip into the 16s pretty soon.
