Apple Blossom Run 10K Race Report
Small town America. Wenatchee, Washington. Population: 27,856.
Today's Apple Blossom Run 10K kicked off the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival Grand Parade this morning and it really was fun, especially when the first mile and change was lined with people and pretty much all downhill!
If the course was measured accurately (and I suspect the start may have been a bit short), then I ran pretty good considering I hadn't done a thing since last Sunday in Oklahoma City.
I covered the distance in 1:01:26.98, which would be a two-minute improvement from the Vancouver Sun Run (April 15) and the Fort Worth Zoo Run Run (April 28). My cardio was fine and my legs felt pretty good. Just trying to get the two back into sync.
The splits looked like this:
Mile 1-2 -- 18:20.62
Mile 3 -- 10:15.35
Mile 4 -- 10:41.13
Mile 5 -- 10:17.41
Mile 6 -- 10:11.71
Last .2 -- 1:40.76
There was one water stop that was just past mile 3 and mile 5. It was staffed by an older couple from the back of their pickup truck. Nobody was dropping their cups in either direction so it was come to a complete stop, which accounted for a little extra time in mile 4. However, it didn't seem to have much effect in mile 6.
The temperature was a nice 62 degrees at the start of the race with a little bit of a breeze. When the breeze went away in the latter stages of the race, it felt a bit warmer.
After running through downtown, we turned off to the Apple Capital Recreational Loop Trail that runs parallel to the massive Columbia River. We passed the finish area, the 5K turnaround and went out just beyond the mile 4 marker before turning back for the approximate 2-mile push to the finish.
The majority of runners were doing the 5K. When I got to the turnaround, I knew that I only had four or five runners behind me. I passed one gentleman in mile 5. I was a little frustrated with my mile 4 split of 10:41 so I tried to bear down a little bit and get going a quicker footstrike (as I counted a 1-through-10 cadence.)
It allowed me to put quite a bit of distance on him as he was fading a little bit. I don't think that I was going just under a 9-minute pace as I did the last .2 miles; therefore, I think the course was off just a little. (I recalled the story while either running or walking back to the car that Denny Morse told me recently about Jeff Galloway coming to Houston in the late 1970s or early 1980s and telling race officials that their 10K course was off. Reportedly, Galloway was a master of his pace. Sure enough, the control stretch of 500 meters was measured inaccurately and caused the course to be short. It also affected three years of finishes at the then Houston-Tenneco Marathon.)
After the race, the only way to get back to my rental car was to walk approximately two and a half miles back to it. (And when I got there, the parade was still going strong! In fact, a certain percentage of floats hadn't left the grass staging area.) One of the more interesting things that I saw in Wenatchee, which by the way has some gorgeous scenery from the Wenatchee Mountains, was that at many schools there was a track measured off in chalk on the grass. Two things came to mind: 1.) they didn't want to pour more concrete and 2.) it is probably better on their legs.
The Kids 1-Mile Race, which started after the 5K and 10K runners went off had four different waves with a caveat that the top names would be listed in tomorrow's paper. Great stuff!
And I couldn't get away from the Aggies while in Washington state! They're everywhere!
I met this gentleman before the race who had a bright maroon Aggie golf jacket on as well as an Aggie visor that said, "Class of '61," on the side. He said that he had been in the Houston area a couple of weeks ago for his 50th high school class reunion at St. Anthony Catholic School in Beaumont. (I had said Monsignor Kelly High School, but forgot that St. Anthony was a H.S. then and competed in the old Texas Catholic Interscholastic League.)
Got here to the hotel (Fairfield Inn) in Spokane at about 3 p.m., checked in and walked over to the Convention Center and registered for tomorrow's Bloomsday Run 12K.
More on that possibly later! Houston's Sean Wade will be looking to defend his 2006 Masters title against Albuquerque, New Mexico's Mbarak Hussein.
Today's Apple Blossom Run 10K kicked off the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival Grand Parade this morning and it really was fun, especially when the first mile and change was lined with people and pretty much all downhill!
If the course was measured accurately (and I suspect the start may have been a bit short), then I ran pretty good considering I hadn't done a thing since last Sunday in Oklahoma City.
I covered the distance in 1:01:26.98, which would be a two-minute improvement from the Vancouver Sun Run (April 15) and the Fort Worth Zoo Run Run (April 28). My cardio was fine and my legs felt pretty good. Just trying to get the two back into sync.
The splits looked like this:
Mile 1-2 -- 18:20.62
Mile 3 -- 10:15.35
Mile 4 -- 10:41.13
Mile 5 -- 10:17.41
Mile 6 -- 10:11.71
Last .2 -- 1:40.76
There was one water stop that was just past mile 3 and mile 5. It was staffed by an older couple from the back of their pickup truck. Nobody was dropping their cups in either direction so it was come to a complete stop, which accounted for a little extra time in mile 4. However, it didn't seem to have much effect in mile 6.
The temperature was a nice 62 degrees at the start of the race with a little bit of a breeze. When the breeze went away in the latter stages of the race, it felt a bit warmer.
After running through downtown, we turned off to the Apple Capital Recreational Loop Trail that runs parallel to the massive Columbia River. We passed the finish area, the 5K turnaround and went out just beyond the mile 4 marker before turning back for the approximate 2-mile push to the finish.
The majority of runners were doing the 5K. When I got to the turnaround, I knew that I only had four or five runners behind me. I passed one gentleman in mile 5. I was a little frustrated with my mile 4 split of 10:41 so I tried to bear down a little bit and get going a quicker footstrike (as I counted a 1-through-10 cadence.)
It allowed me to put quite a bit of distance on him as he was fading a little bit. I don't think that I was going just under a 9-minute pace as I did the last .2 miles; therefore, I think the course was off just a little. (I recalled the story while either running or walking back to the car that Denny Morse told me recently about Jeff Galloway coming to Houston in the late 1970s or early 1980s and telling race officials that their 10K course was off. Reportedly, Galloway was a master of his pace. Sure enough, the control stretch of 500 meters was measured inaccurately and caused the course to be short. It also affected three years of finishes at the then Houston-Tenneco Marathon.)
After the race, the only way to get back to my rental car was to walk approximately two and a half miles back to it. (And when I got there, the parade was still going strong! In fact, a certain percentage of floats hadn't left the grass staging area.) One of the more interesting things that I saw in Wenatchee, which by the way has some gorgeous scenery from the Wenatchee Mountains, was that at many schools there was a track measured off in chalk on the grass. Two things came to mind: 1.) they didn't want to pour more concrete and 2.) it is probably better on their legs.
The Kids 1-Mile Race, which started after the 5K and 10K runners went off had four different waves with a caveat that the top names would be listed in tomorrow's paper. Great stuff!
And I couldn't get away from the Aggies while in Washington state! They're everywhere!
I met this gentleman before the race who had a bright maroon Aggie golf jacket on as well as an Aggie visor that said, "Class of '61," on the side. He said that he had been in the Houston area a couple of weeks ago for his 50th high school class reunion at St. Anthony Catholic School in Beaumont. (I had said Monsignor Kelly High School, but forgot that St. Anthony was a H.S. then and competed in the old Texas Catholic Interscholastic League.)
Got here to the hotel (Fairfield Inn) in Spokane at about 3 p.m., checked in and walked over to the Convention Center and registered for tomorrow's Bloomsday Run 12K.
More on that possibly later! Houston's Sean Wade will be looking to defend his 2006 Masters title against Albuquerque, New Mexico's Mbarak Hussein.
posted by WalkSports.com | 9:50 PM
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