Wake-up call: the Arbutus Firecracker 10K

We look better than we feel, and we don't look that great! 

I believe I mentioned in my last post that I expected the Arbutus Firecracker 10K, which happened yesterday, to be a wake-up call for Andrew and I. I expected it to be hot, hilly, and a great reminder of all the training we have not been doing for our late summer and fall races. Boy, was I right! This race was BRUTAL.

I'll start with the heat. As many of you know, its been 100 degrees in the shade in most of the mid-Atlantic for the past couple of weeks. When we headed to the race yesterday morning, it wasn't quite as bad as we anticipated. Probably mid-80's at the race start, with some cloud cover. Hot, but not the worst I've experienced (read about that here). By about mile 2, however, the sun was out and the heat was intense. I will give big credit to the race volunteers and neighbors. They managed to put up 5 or 6 official water stops, plus at least a couple unofficial stops, and many people turned on their hoses and sprinklers. So, there were many opportunities to cool off. Still, it was my first time this summer running in really hot weather and I was NOT prepared for it. Ugh.

Next, the hills. As I knew from my three times running the Arbutus 5K, there is not a flat road in that town. This race was hilly at a level on par with the Baltimore Running Festival. Combined with the heat and my poor training, the hills just beat me down. By about halfway through the race, I was talking walk breaks on many of the uphills.

Finally, the lack of training. I spent a lot of this race thinking about the workouts I've missed over the past couple months and the alcohol and poor food I've consumed. I'm trying to give myself a break on the missed workouts because I do need to plan my wedding. The alcohol and food, though? I can do better there, and it would help me get ready for both my races AND my wedding. Time to make better choices!

The results? I never intended to PR in this race. At the start line, I hoped to finish somewhere around 1:05. By the halfway point, I was thinking 1:06. By mile 10, I just hoped to make it in under 1:10. Final time? 1:11:32. That's nearly 10 minutes slower than my 10K PR (1:01:37) and just barely above my worst 10K time (1:12:23). Boo.

On the brighter side, Andrew ran this race too! It was his second 10K in just over 2 weeks and WAY harder than the first one. He finished a bit slower than the first race, but I thought he was a champ just for surviving this one.

This weekend, we start our official marathon training (me) and 10-miler training (Andrew) brimming with motivation!