Striders Bear Creek 10K/20K ... and 30K!

I made it a 30K, but it wasn't official! However, you'll notice that I didn't put it as a "race report." Was it because I had a bad time and I don't want to count it? Nope, not at all.

Mentally, it really was a training run for me. I've used events to get ready for other events in the past and probably still will. In some cases, I've read that that is desirable to do that to either simulate distances, conditions (such as terrain), racing strategy, pacing, etc. -- again all dependent upon the runner's level. [Call me on anything that doesn't make any sense!]

I took Waverly last night to the Pat Green concert at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion in The Woodlands. (Well, we got there early enough to see the act before who we both like best - Dierks Bentley.) We got back at about 10 p.m. and she went to bed as she was going to attempt a 10K this morning and I didn't make it until close to midnight. [Oh, thanks to Susie Schreiber at Luke's Locker in The Woodlands for the free lawn tickets. If you were at Run The Woodlands 5K on Saturday, they had received a "lot" of them from TXU Energy - the sponsor of the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day.]

The alarm went off at 4:15 a.m. I started to get ready and waited until 4:30 a.m. to get her up, but she got up with some gas and had maybe a little bit of what kept her out of school on Thursday. [My stomach was a little queasy too, but I got some of those peanut butter cookies like the "Nutter Butters" at Walgreen's on Hwy. 6 and Westheimer at about 5:30 a.m.]

I made it to Terry Hershey Park at about 5:45 a.m., got out of the truck and hit the trail at 5:50 a.m. (I know this only because it was 6:59 a.m. when I finished.)

To me to even think that I had a chance of being ready for New York City in four (4) weeks was for me to do 30K today - 18.6 miles. And there were many times that I tried to talk myself out of it. When I got to the water stop at halfway point (near Kirkwood) on the out and back course, I told Brett Riley and Carlos Camacho that I might see them again and that I had already been out there once before.

When I came in for the "first" 10K, I could have stopped. And I had thought about it. But somebody said at the starting point water stop, "Your halfway." I said, "Nope, 2/3rds of the way." They didn't know that I had done a 10K before we started at 7 a.m. I don't really think that that really fired me up or anything, but I realized that I would never handle what NYC had to throw at me unless I did this today.

It was a confidence builder. And even though I slowed it down and wasn't "racing", I was very proud of how I ran today. (And, yes, cool weather rocks! I wore my long-sleeved XL Nike shirt and then I switched to the short sleeve burgundy shirt that I normally race in.)

Here's why:

First 10K - 1:09:45.22 (34:33.41 going out; 35:11.81 coming back)
Second 10K - 1:10:01.79 (34:51.12 out; 35:10.67 back)
Third 10K - 1:13:05.39 (35:45.29 out; 37:20.10 back)

The first 10K was a dry run. (I had some Powerade from in my truck before Striders running coach Steve Shepard started the "official" 10K/20K.) The last two 10Ks had three (3) water stops each. I went from water only to two parts Gatorade/one part water in the last 10K.

I had a compliment from one of our club members who saw me coming back during my second 10K and he said that he was impressed about how my gait was solid throughout the run. I think my time showed that in that I was consistent. Again, I was focusing on trying to run the entire way and I did through the first 25K (15.5 miles). I walked a little bit in the last 5K, but nothing real, real significant. I might have burned a little extra time on the last two water stops as opposed to slowing down running.

After 13.4 miles, my time was 2:30 even. This compares favorably (a couple of minutes better) than the half marathon that I ran in Helotes last Saturday. :)

So now I'll spend Sunday looking at travel connections, etc. and getting my plans together for NYC. I think I'm realistic about being able to not go there and embarrass myself.

Many thanks to Brett, Carlos, Megan Clark-Dillingham, Ryan Stepler (who both manned the mid-course water stop), Steve, Barry Chambers and Lisa Ruthven (who manned the bikes to make sure to look for any injured runner) as well as a host of other Striders who made the event possible.

How good of a run was this for me? I haven't even attempted to compare it to anything else that I've run - like last year's 30K in Sugar Land as part of the Warm-Up Series - since I got home from the west side of town!

Go Penn State! (Wow, can you believe? 6-0!)
Go Astros - Kick the Braves out today!
Go Steelers on Monday night in San Diego!