The Event....Town N Country Run for Health 10k and 5k. The race is sponsored by the Town N Country hospital located just west of Tampa, Florida, draws several hundred runners and has no entry fee. I ran the 10k.

 

The Weather....Perfect! About 40 F temp at race time with very low humidity, light breeze and cloudless sky.

 

The Course....Excellent! Flat. About half of the race was run on a wide paved trail. Most of the rest was through a couple of quiet neighborhoods. However, about 3/4 mile (from 3.75 to 4.5) and all of the last 1/4 mile were on grass and sand, which affected pace....especially the last 1/4 mile where the sand got fairly deep at times. Also, miles 1, 3 and 4 included a 180 degree turn.

 

The Goals....This year I’m a little behind where I was at this time last year, as indicated by my recent 5k-4 mile race times and speed work paces. So, I set beating last year’s time in this race (52:23 or 8:26 ave pace) as a ceiling goal. A 25:47 5k (8:24 pace) race at the beginning of my spring 10k training program 3 weeks ago under similar weather and course conditions equated to a 54:07 10k, so I set that as my floor goal. Since I’ve had three weeks of 10k training since the 5k, I thought I should be able to better that by at least 10 sec/mile, so I set 53:00 as a realistic goal.

 

The Race....It went a better than I expected from the outset. My legs felt strong and fresh during my warmup. The crisp, almost chilly, morning felt tremendous. The crowded start wasn’t a big problem. Just the customary slow runners who started much to close to the front to get around...including a pack of about 20 8-10 year old kids who took off like rockets for 200 meters, then died to a walk, and a guy holding his 4-5 year old daughter’s hand as they jogged away from a start on the front line! My splits were 8:16, 8:15, 8:22, 8:34, 8:15, 8:08, and 1:54 (8:55 pace) for the last .213 mile. The 3,4 and last .213 mile splits really show the effect of the grass/sand surfaces....and I was working as hard on these sections as in the rest of the race. However, I do think the 6 mile marker might have been slightly misplaced. I don’t think I picked it up that much in mile 6. Nor do I think I slowed nearly that much in the last .213 mile even with the sand.

 

The Results....51:44 for an average pace of 8:20/mile, which is 6 sec/mile faster than my ceiling goal and last year’s race. Looks like I blew goal setting for this one. J It was also good enough for second place in my age group, which is a repeat of last year.

 

The Postrace....fruit, blueberry and bran muffins, juices, hot dogs, sodas, and ice cream. Posture and gait analyses, cholesterol screening, other health/fitness info tables, free kid’s photo ID’s, and clowns painting Face-Toons on kids. A lot of stuff, plus a good race, all for free. Not a bad deal! All of that plus a surprising race time and age group award made for a very enjoyable and satisfying morning.

 

Jim2

 

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