It has been warm and humid for the past 3 weeks here in Florida. We finally got a break Friday night just in time for the Gasparilla 15k Saturday morning. The temp at race time was in the low-50's with winds of 15 mph and gusts of 20-25. Wind chill was in the 30's.

 

The course was excellent.....flat and fast. The first mile included a couple of turns through a neighborhood before heading downwind on Bayshore Blvd along Hillsborough Bay to a turnaround at the 5 mile point. The final 4.3 miles retraced Bayshore Blvd into the wind.

 

My goal for this race was to get a good tempo run (8:50 pace) for the first 6 miles, then decide whether to continue at the same pace for the last 3 miles or try to race the last 5k, depending on how I felt. I expected a race in the 8:35-8:50 pace range.

 

A crowded field of 5590 made the start of the race very slow, which was more of a help than a hindrance since I didn’t warm up prior to the start. It made certain that I kept the pace comfortable in the first couple of miles. The entire first 5 miles were spent running in a crowd. Every time the field started to thin, the street narrowed causing it to pack in again. Also, there was a water station every mile or less after mile two, which meant for a lot of bottlenecks. Getting around folks who started either too far up in the field or too fast and were slowing was a constant challenge. After the turnaround at 5 miles, the field thinned nicely because the entire last 4.3 miles were run on a 3-4 lane road.

 

There was a clock at each mile marker and at the 5k and 10k points. I missed the first mile clock/marker. After 1:17 to cross the start, my splits were 17:58 (8:59 ave for 2 miles), 8:51, 8:41, 8:36, 8:35, 8:22, 8:21, 8:13, and 2:28 for the last .3205 miles (7:42 pace). My 5k splits were 27:43, 26:45 and 25:37 with the last 4 miles directly into a strong headwind. (My second running life 5k PR is 25:19.)

 

I was very surprised that the strong wind wasn’t a problem. It was there.....it was a factor to be dealt with.....but it wasn’t a problem. After the turnaround, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to continue to pick up the pace in mile 6 and every mile afterwards and feel strong all the way. I ran the strongest race I’ve run in 10 years. The last 2 miles were hard.....the last half mile hurt.....but I was in control of my race every step of the way from beginning to end. My clock time was 1:21:22 and chip time was 1:20:05 for an average pace of 8:37/mile.

 

Of 167 races I’ve run, this was my first 15k, so it was a PR. J  I finished 36 of 97 in the 60-64 age group and 2554 of 5590 overall. It was the most satisfying and best executed race I’ve run in a long time.

 

Jim2

 

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