Green Bay, WI | June 13, 2015 | Time: 58:03 | Finally a new PR at a 10K for me!! I wasn’t sure how this race was going to go at all. I had been sick with a cold or allergies for the week and hadn’t done much running. And of course there’s the whole still getting used to humidity running thing. But it all turned out quite well for me (and Jon too).
The expo for this race was kind of meh, which was sad considering this is one of the largest 10Ks in the country and even some real racing elites were there to compete. But we grabbed our packets and found out Jon was started in Corral 2 and I was back in Corral 3. I couldn’t remember what times I put in for us, but then thought they may have just asked what time we’d thought we finished it in (this was obvious by the bad corraling on race morning).
Race Day- we were up early, had our bananas and granola bars, tried to hydrate well while we stretched and waited for it to be closer to race time. I had lucked out with a hotel across the street from the start so no need to hurry down there.
When we finally made it across the street it was time to line up and then get going. The corrals were spaced about 6 minutes apart so I finally started around 8:12 or so. The first two miles were full of dodging folks who signed themselves up in the wrong corral- and I was also trying to keep my pace up. It was also a steady up hill climb especially at the end of mile 2. Then we got a small break with an easy downhill pulling into mile 3 (and my best split of the race- 8:59 for that miler). After that I hit a wall- the GU I’d had was started to wear off, it was getting really hot and I just wanted to be finished. I was trying to keep my pace around 9:45s for miles 4 and 5 and just keep going. Luckily there were enough water stops that I was able to toss water on my face many times. This helped immensely with my overheating. As we pulled into the last half mile of mile 6 I started to inch up my pace just a bit. I really wanted a PR in this distance. I’d felt like I’d put in the work, I wanted a good result. Then in the last .2 of the race something kicked in and I sprinted hard core toward the finish, just about passing out as I crossed the finish- needed to breathe so bad!! But my watch said 58:03!!! I had done it! Success finally.
Found Jon in the crowd, and he came in around 47 minutes. One day I’ll get that fast! So it was a good race for both of us and then it was time to explore Green Bay and head up to Door County. Thanks Bellin for a good run!!
chasing every adventure 