Nowhere 2 Run 10K Race Report
While my fellow Seven Hills Running Club members (Adrienne Langelier, Robert Duncan and John Slate) and The Woodlands Running Club members (Michael and Vincent Attanucci) went to the Beneezy Purple Monkey 10K in Alvin, I journeyed to the small central Texas town of Milano.
And I almost didn't make it in time for the Nowhere 2 Run 10K!
The alarm was set for 6 a.m. I figured it would take me about two hours to make it there (but I still hadn't determined the route that I was going to take to get there.) It went off (unlike Sarah's didn't use to), but I hit the snooze twice. After checking to see if Waverly was going to go with me or not, I showered and was out the door by 6:30 a.m. for the 8:30 a.m. race.
I stopped and got gas in Rosehill (where it was $3.32 a gallon) and got a brownie and orange juice to get something in my stomach.
As I got to Brenham and on the way to Somerville, I was doing the mileage vs. time calculations and I realized that I was going to be cutting it real close. If I was late, well, I would just go on to Austin to register for the Human Race 10K.
To kill some time while driving, I called Bill. During the conversation (I actually typed "convention" as I was downloading Sarah Palin's weekly radio address) , he told me about running in Milano himself as well as a past running story in which he uttered the magic words, "Late start".
It didn't look good as I pulled into Caldwell - the site of next Saturday's Kolache Krunch 5K. I think it said 36 miles with 30 minutes left to go. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I was going to harm the environment a little bit more to get there.
Thank goodness there were signs to the race after turning west on Highway 79 coming off Highway 36 (which I had taken north since leaving Brenham).
Runners were beginning to move towards the starting line as I parked the truck. The time on my watch was 8:32 a.m. I ran in to the fire house and quickly registered. It was $25. A bargain for any 10K, but this race had little or no costs so most of it would go toward the Milano Running Foundation. A good thing! In fact, the lady didn't have change for my $30. I said something about finding her later to get a refund ... but I never did.
I barely had enough time to run my packet, with a nice T-shirt in it, to the truck, put my bib on and get to the starting line. If they had started it on time, I wouldn't have made it.
But it did guarantee one thing - that the temperature was going to soar during the run.
The course, which was described as "mostly flat, hidden hills", was an out-and-back with a lot of slight rolling hills.
Start to the 5K turnaround -- 15:14.60
5k turnaround to the 2-mile -- 4:27.50 (19:42.10)
From the 2-mile to the 10K turnaround -- 11:01.31 (30:43.41)
I thought to myself that the 2-mile time given the heat and the topography wasn't too bad. I continued to think the same at the turnaround with visions of maybe another 1:03 showing like I did in Lampasas ... but the humidity seemed to be much more oppressive than it was west of Austin a month earlier.
From the 10K turnaround to the 4-mile -- 9:51.88 (40:35.29)
Still I'm thinking, "Ok, 10:09 per mile on a hot day isn't that bad." But it started to slip away a bit as mile five finished (time to come) finish on an uphill incline on FM 3242.
From the 4-mile to the 5K turnaround spot -- 6:41.44
From the 5K turnaround to the 5-mile mark -- 5:03.54 (52:20.27)
From the 5-mile mark to the finish -- 13:24.33 (1:05:44.60)
Interestingly, when I put the course in at mapmyrun.com to take a look at the elevation, the toughest part - it would seem - is in the first (and last) 1.25 miles. The course starts at just over 501 feet above sea level and goes up by almost 60 feet and still hitting a mark of about 550 feet near the 1.25-mile mark.
All of miles 2 and 3 (and 4 and 5) stay under 500 feet above sea level, but there are rollers. This would explain why the 2-mile time is slower than my "heat" RTW 5K 2-mile (although not by much), but why the finish was difficult was well too.
Oh well. It was a different experience. Good people. Lots of "small town" door prizes. They gave away a heart rate monitor as the main drawing. Plenty of age group medals to go around.
At this race was USATF racewalking official Dave Gwyn (of the Terlingua Track Club), a trio of runners from the Sun City Striders who participated in the Texas Independence Relay, and a woman - 52-year-old Karol Curran - from the D-FW Metroplex that is crazier than I.
I saw Karol at three of the four 5Ks back in April that I did in Fort Worth, Aledo, Pilot Point and Dallas, and I last saw her at the Bat Run 5K in Austin in July.
This past weekend, she did the 5K in Milano, the West Fest 5000 on Sunday morning in West (33:23.84), the Human Race 10K in Austin Sunday night (1:11:39) and I think she was going to do the Fort Worth Runners Club 5K on Labor Day morning. She's a very proficient walker.
At the completion of the race, I was off to Austin to register for the Nike Human Race 10K.
And I almost didn't make it in time for the Nowhere 2 Run 10K!
The alarm was set for 6 a.m. I figured it would take me about two hours to make it there (but I still hadn't determined the route that I was going to take to get there.) It went off (unlike Sarah's didn't use to), but I hit the snooze twice. After checking to see if Waverly was going to go with me or not, I showered and was out the door by 6:30 a.m. for the 8:30 a.m. race.
I stopped and got gas in Rosehill (where it was $3.32 a gallon) and got a brownie and orange juice to get something in my stomach.
As I got to Brenham and on the way to Somerville, I was doing the mileage vs. time calculations and I realized that I was going to be cutting it real close. If I was late, well, I would just go on to Austin to register for the Human Race 10K.
To kill some time while driving, I called Bill. During the conversation (I actually typed "convention" as I was downloading Sarah Palin's weekly radio address) , he told me about running in Milano himself as well as a past running story in which he uttered the magic words, "Late start".
It didn't look good as I pulled into Caldwell - the site of next Saturday's Kolache Krunch 5K. I think it said 36 miles with 30 minutes left to go. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I was going to harm the environment a little bit more to get there.
Thank goodness there were signs to the race after turning west on Highway 79 coming off Highway 36 (which I had taken north since leaving Brenham).
Runners were beginning to move towards the starting line as I parked the truck. The time on my watch was 8:32 a.m. I ran in to the fire house and quickly registered. It was $25. A bargain for any 10K, but this race had little or no costs so most of it would go toward the Milano Running Foundation. A good thing! In fact, the lady didn't have change for my $30. I said something about finding her later to get a refund ... but I never did.
I barely had enough time to run my packet, with a nice T-shirt in it, to the truck, put my bib on and get to the starting line. If they had started it on time, I wouldn't have made it.
But it did guarantee one thing - that the temperature was going to soar during the run.
The course, which was described as "mostly flat, hidden hills", was an out-and-back with a lot of slight rolling hills.
Start to the 5K turnaround -- 15:14.60
5k turnaround to the 2-mile -- 4:27.50 (19:42.10)
From the 2-mile to the 10K turnaround -- 11:01.31 (30:43.41)
I thought to myself that the 2-mile time given the heat and the topography wasn't too bad. I continued to think the same at the turnaround with visions of maybe another 1:03 showing like I did in Lampasas ... but the humidity seemed to be much more oppressive than it was west of Austin a month earlier.
From the 10K turnaround to the 4-mile -- 9:51.88 (40:35.29)
Still I'm thinking, "Ok, 10:09 per mile on a hot day isn't that bad." But it started to slip away a bit as mile five finished (time to come) finish on an uphill incline on FM 3242.
From the 4-mile to the 5K turnaround spot -- 6:41.44
From the 5K turnaround to the 5-mile mark -- 5:03.54 (52:20.27)
From the 5-mile mark to the finish -- 13:24.33 (1:05:44.60)
Interestingly, when I put the course in at mapmyrun.com to take a look at the elevation, the toughest part - it would seem - is in the first (and last) 1.25 miles. The course starts at just over 501 feet above sea level and goes up by almost 60 feet and still hitting a mark of about 550 feet near the 1.25-mile mark.
All of miles 2 and 3 (and 4 and 5) stay under 500 feet above sea level, but there are rollers. This would explain why the 2-mile time is slower than my "heat" RTW 5K 2-mile (although not by much), but why the finish was difficult was well too.
Oh well. It was a different experience. Good people. Lots of "small town" door prizes. They gave away a heart rate monitor as the main drawing. Plenty of age group medals to go around.
At this race was USATF racewalking official Dave Gwyn (of the Terlingua Track Club), a trio of runners from the Sun City Striders who participated in the Texas Independence Relay, and a woman - 52-year-old Karol Curran - from the D-FW Metroplex that is crazier than I.
I saw Karol at three of the four 5Ks back in April that I did in Fort Worth, Aledo, Pilot Point and Dallas, and I last saw her at the Bat Run 5K in Austin in July.
This past weekend, she did the 5K in Milano, the West Fest 5000 on Sunday morning in West (33:23.84), the Human Race 10K in Austin Sunday night (1:11:39) and I think she was going to do the Fort Worth Runners Club 5K on Labor Day morning. She's a very proficient walker.
At the completion of the race, I was off to Austin to register for the Nike Human Race 10K.
posted by WalkSports.com | 1:10 PM
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