Nookchamps Winter Runs 10K

On Saturday, Terry and I ran our first 10k. It was really nice that we were able to run it together.  He stayed at my pace, which was quite slow, but we finished under my goal of an hour and a half.  We were able to cross the finish line together at 1:25:55. 

Overall, we don't have much good to say about the event except we ran it together.  We felt like the signage was inadequate as it took us about 10 minutes walking around a college campus to find the registration.  Then, there was no direction as to what to do once we got our race packets.  Since there the race wasn't chipped and the roads we were running on weren't going to be closed, we decided to start early so we wouldn't have to compete with other racers at the starting line.

When we started the course, the first mile was a gradual up hill.  Great, I hate hills.  After that, we ran through some farm lands and got to enjoy the smells of a local dairy... I don't know what is worse, smelling car exhaust or country cologne.  Also, by now, the sidewalks were gone and there was no shoulder to run on so we are trying to share the narrow road with passing vehicles.  After about a mile of that, there was another long, this time very steep, uphill.  Once we got to the top of that, we passed the mile 3 marker.

From there, things mostly leveled out and we had some minor hills to deal with as well as roads with no shoulders where the white line was hanging off the edge of the pavement.  No fun.  We kept going and luckily running together made the time go faster.  Right before the mile 5 marker, there was another steep section, this time it was short though, only about a block long.  In my head, I thought the last mile would be easy since it was so close to the end.  That was not the case though. 

The mile marker 5 was right before we cut into a wooded trail.  This was my favorite portion of the course as we were running through trees on a sawdust path.  It kind of reminded me of being in high school and running in Fall Creek.  By this time, my legs were hurting.  I wasn't good on my workouts for the weeks prior to the event and by mile 5, I could tell that I wasn't as in good of shape as I would have liked.  We kept pushing though, and with Terry's motivation, I was able to finish the race.

We crossed finished the 10k, or 6.2 miles, at 1:25:55.  My goal was to complete in under 1:30, but in my head I was hoping for a finish in under 1:20.  Overall, I am just glad I was able to jog the entire time.  It is amazing to think that just a couple months ago I could only run for about 2 minutes straight and now I can go for about an hour and a half.  I do know that I need to get back into a regular workout routine as things of tappered off with the holidays and starting school again.When we crossed the finish line I didn't think I would ever sign up for a 10k again as I was miseralbe, however, things change and as of this morning, our next 10k is on March 20 in Orting.