The Franklin Classic was a fun, well organized race. I drove there with my neighbor, Corey, and quickly found a place to park next to some of the amazing historic houses of Franklin. I love that town. For days, the forecast called for rain (courtesy of Isaac), and we were nervous about the skies opening, but they never did, and the cloud cover was definitely a blessing. The humidity was ridiculous, but it's one of those things you have to grin and bear around here.
I went into this thinking of it as just a training run. I would just keep a nice pace, and told Ray I would try to finish in about an hour. I have just been running so slow in this weather - I wasn't expecting much. While waiting for the race to start, I talked to a woman in the running group. She asked me what my goal was....uhhh...She decided since I finished my last half in under 2 hours, I should be able to finish in 52 minutes. Wow. I laughed and started negotiating my goal with her...58? 54? No...55? Okay, 55 minutes.
As usual, I took off too fast. I looked at my watch at one point and saw 8:18 - felt okay at that point, but knew I couldn't keep that up. After the first mile, I started to get what felt like shin splints in my right leg. It hurt and slowed me down. Got a little sad watching what felt like everyone pass me by. But up came some hills, and those same people that passed by me, were now either shuffling or walking. For some reason, going up those hills, the pain in my leg worked it's way out. I started to really pick up the pace around mile 4. I just felt great and decided to push it. At mile 5, I told myself to go all out, and I did end up sprinting hard when the finish line came into view. According to my watch, I finished with 6.27 miles in 55:16. I've never run a 10k, so I guess that's my PB! I think I have it in me to run a faster 10k, but I'm happy with what I ran on such a hilly course, on a humid day, and deciding to make a last minute goal.
Love starting out my day with a race....
*Official Race Results*
55:14 - Meh...
Age Group: 19/85 - now, I just think that's cool. Don't know why...it was neat to see my name up near the top.
Overall: 418 out of apprx. 3500.
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