Trinity Levee 10k

Always wear your White Rock Running Co-op shirt to races, and you will be surrounded by friends. Also, what is with those poses (me and Carlos, to left?! Hahahar)

Here’s what it looks like to be third overall female, missing second by literally one second! (Punches self in face).

I also came in first masters female, but they gave me the Third Overall plaque rather than the First Place Masters—no prize monies either way, so I’m totally fine with not being called out on my old age.

A podium finish is cool. I am old, though, and only getting older, as are we all, if we are lucky …

Kudos to fellow White Rock Running Co-op member Brent Woodle who came first place overall.

Garmin stats: Ran a very even race. This is thanks to running with a heart rate monitor.

The Trinity Levee course was great. A few rough patches, and it starts out on the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge, but it turned out to be net downhill because the finish line was under the levee. (I wish I had known this when I started; I held back a bit, thinking I would face an uphill on the last mile).

Here’s one of those rough patches. But how cool is this photo with the infographics (that was my slowest point of the race :()?

As it always is with races of two distances, the problems happen when 5k-ers merge with 10k-ers. As I turned the last corner, as I dropped my speed to a 6:15 pace, I found myself behind three side-by-side-by-side 5k runners with no way to pass.

I hollered as I approached their heels, “Please let me pass!” And I swear I said yelled “Please.” Not one of them heard or acknowledged me, I assume because they all were wearing headphones. So I wound up slowing down and eventually passing in the muddy area aside the trail.

Gotta take the #badracephotos with the good, right? Here’s where the 5k and 10k merged. Yeah, I see the fanny pack too, but we’re not here to judge. At least she’s not blocking out the world with headphones.

Remember that ONE SECOND? Still, I have no one to blame but myself. I could and should have had more than that one second cushion. Hindsights: Maybe I should have started at the front. I lined up about 10-12 deep at the starting line, which also was a mistake that cost me seconds.

Dozens of slower runners toed the line right UP FRONT of this very crowded field. How people do not intuitively know that this is wrong, I will never figure out. At least no strollers or dogs were in my way.

Awesome idea: Cypress at Trinity Groves partnered with race organizers to provide FREE race photos. Hopefully we will soon say goodbye to the racket that is the race photo business!

Now that I seem to be somewhat back in fighting shape, I plan to hone in on the 10k training. I’m doing speedwork about two times a week. I’ll start posting the training schedule here on the blog again. I don’t know if anyone reads it, but it helps me to have everything posted here anyway.

I hope to improve on this time at the upcoming Celebration White Rock 10k, March 24. (Full disclosure: I have a free entry via my magazine, East Dallas Advocate.)

My 10k PR is 40:43. My goal is to beat that. My pie in the sky is to break 40, but the cool weather is waning and so are my chances of doing that this season.