Grooved to Run

Yesterday afternoon I ran the Dallastown Wildcat 10K, the second YRRC Winter Series race that I’ve entered this year. Although the race was my 12th race overall, but my first ever 10K race… so I definitely had some nerves/anxiety going into it.

Here’s how M.C. Helsabeck described the race in the York Daily Record:

It is time for the third race in the York Road Runners’ Club Winter Series, and I won’t lie to you, this one is not easy. In fact, some local runners make sure to do the course once in a while because it, “builds character,” said Jan Workinger of the YRRC.

The Dallastown Wildcat 10K takes place Saturday, and it will start at Dallastown Area High School. In between there are two tough hills to climb: Park Street (a half-mile climb in the fourth mile) and Blymire Road (a one-mile climb to the finish). That final hill is a beast when you are tired.

Mix in some cloudy skies, slight breeze, and freezing 28 degree temperatures and you’ve got yourself a challenging race.

I’d say there were about a hundred people there or so, a slightly smaller crowd than was at Spring Valley a couple of weeks ago.

We lined up at the starting line in 28 degree weather under mostly cloudy skies at about 12:15 PM… and were off.

I felt everyone accelerating around me, so much so that I found myself doing a 6-7 minute/mile pace into the quarter mile mark. That’s way too fast for me, so I slowed it down and tried to settle into a reasonable 10K pace. Luckily the first 1.3+ miles were almost all downhill.

The first major hill started at the end of mile 3 and went well into mile 4. That was tough and took a lot out of me. There was a water station at the 4 mile mark that I took advantage of and was able to get a quick burst of speed going downhill to make up some lost time. Unfortunately, the hill that I enjoyed running down at the beginning was also the final leg of the race. By that time I was just about spent and struggled to make it to the top. From there it was a short sprint to the finish.

According to my Garmin, I covered 6.19 miles in 58:29.49 (9:27/mi pace) with an average speed of 6.3 MPH and a max speed of 11.7 MPH. My 1-mile splits were 7:12, 8:47, 9:40, 10:04, 9:53, and 11:07, with the last 0.19 at a 9:01/mi pace. Looking at the finish line photos, it looks like the clock said 58:31 when I crossed. Either way, that’s a PR for me, beating my previous (unofficial) PR of 1:00:26.

Just like at one time running a 5K in under 30 minutes was a major goal of mine, breaking the 1 hour mark for a 10K is a big accomplishment for me. The fact that it was on a non-trivial course makes it have that much more legitimacy for me.

I feel like this one’s a PR to be proud of.

MB | Photos

Today was the Spring Valley 5K race which is part of the YRRC Winter Series. It started a little after the scheduled 2 PM start time, but that was fine with me. I met up with Bill H. and was able to get some much needed warm-up time by doing some laps around the park. Then it was time to line up at the (extremely muddy) starting line.

I’d say there were about 120-140 runners there today, under sunny skies and with almost perfect 50 degree weather.

Now, I had been warned that this course had some serious hills, so it’s not like I went into it expecting a flat road. I’m not sure any amount of warnings, however, could have prepared me for what I actually encountered during this race. It started on a downhill, which was nice, but then immediately went up a steep hill. A few more turns and we were heading back down an extremely steep incline… and that was the last of the downhills.

From about 0.8 miles to 2.8 miles, it was basically uphill. Check out the elevation graph (green line in the pace graph below).

By the way, the pace spike at 0.8 was a turn-around cone.

I’m usually pretty decent on hills, but the hills on this course just destroyed me.

According to my Garmin Forerunner, I covered 3.03 miles in 27:22 (9:02/mi pace) with an average speed of 6.6 MPH and a max of 11.5 MPH. My 1-mile splits were 7:53, 9:32, and 9:45, with the last 156 feet at a 5:47/mi pace. Total ascent was around 600-650 feet. Burned about 450 calories.

I’m not sure the splits and average pace really tell the whole picture. At one point around 1.5 mile mark and trying my best to make it up yet another incline, I actually hit a 13:00+ pace. That’s pretty bad. But at least I can say I was still “running” at that point, no matter how slowly I was moving or how badly I wanted to walk.

Not my fastest 5K ever, but I certainly worked harder for this one than at any of my previous races. Definitely enjoyable (after the fact). And of course YRRC did an outstanding job of organizing and timing the race. They always do a really nice job with events.

I’m spent.

MB | Photos