5:30 am -Wake up but not feeling quite rested despite an extra hour of sleep due to Daylight Savings Time. Most likely because I was up for two hours in the middle of the night.
6:45 am - Sitting at computer checking the weather. Current temperature 30° with a 26° wind chill. Ouch. Finally decided on capris, short sleeves, arm sleeves and racing flats. Getting ready to go.
7:00 am - Time to leave.
8:00 am – Arrive at race, hit registration, get unisex shirt that is too big (again) and race bib.
8:30 am – Two mile warm up jog to shake out my legs and get warm. It’s cold and windy.
9:15 am - Race starts.

I used today’s race as a workout instead of racing it. I cannot tell you how difficult that was for me to do but it was a great test for me, mentally. I’m feeling strong and this past week I failed (once) at controlling my pace. How was I going to control myself in a race situation? The plan was to run the first half easy and then drop the pace to tempo and push the second five miles. I censured myself more than once when I wanted to pick it up. It was tough in the early miles when several people passed me but I kept reminding myself that I have been training all these months to race a marathon, not this last minute 10 miler.

I’ve never run this race but I can guarantee I will be back. I loved the course which consisted of mostly flat country roads with some easy hills thrown in for good measure. The wind was rough in a couple different places but for the most part it was a very enjoyable race.

Splits:
m1 – 7:45
m2 – 7:43
m3 – 7:30
m4 – 7:44
m5 – 7:41
m6 – 7:23
m7 – 7:16
m8 – 7:15
m9 – 7:44 – damn hill
m10 – 7:05
m10.04 – 0:10

Unofficial Time: 1:15:16 (7:30 pace)
Official Time: 1:15:16
Overall: 72/278 (25.9%)
Gender: 16/117 (13.7%)
Age group: 4/17 (23.5%)

It was a PR day.