Hospital Hill 10K Recap

Jim and I got up bright and early yesterday morning (4 am) to get ready for the Hospital Hill 10K.  The race started at 7 am, but we were leaving the house promptly at 5:15 am.  It's about a 45 minute drive to downtown Kansas City.  We swung by my friend Michelle's house so she could follow us downtown. Michelle was running the Half Marathon (and rocked it even after being at a concert until 1 am the night before).  Jim and I were both doing the 10K.

As anticipated the Three H's were in full effect:  HEAT, HUMIDITY, and HILLS!!!!  All were relentless. When we first got out of the car I thought, it's actually kind of nice, of course that was still at 6 am.  By the time the race started the sun was out and the humidity was going up.  I have been doing long runs around 7 miles with an average number of hills and I told myself to just kind of make this a training run.  It was going to be hot, just take my time, but I wanted to run all 6.2.  That was all out the window after the first hill.  As you know I'm a pretty slow runner and after trying to slow down and just take the first hill....I (as in the past) saw people walking faster than me up the hill.  I just decided not to fight it.  I would power walk up the hills and save time and energy.  I went out a bit too fast and ran my fastest mile first, but I seem to do that in every race.  Not sure when I will learn, but the first mile was probably the easiest from an elevation standpoint.  I was happy to say however, that my last three miles got progressively faster with my last mile being my second fastest, so I did save a little something for the end.

My splits:
Mile 1 - 11:41
Mile 2 - 12:57
Mile 3 - 11:59
Mile 4 - 12:42
Mile 5 - 12:33
Mile 6 - 11:58
Mile .31 - 12:08 (I also logged a "fastest pace" at 6:28....what the heck?  Is that even possible - I was sprinting at the end for sure)

My garmin showed 6.31 miles when I was done, with an average pace of 12:18.  My chip time of course was based on 6.2 so my overall time of  1:17:36 only had an official pace of 12:30.  But with the heat and humidity, and the 422 feet of elevation (according to Garmin), I was content with my results.  It's certainly not a great time, but technically it's my 10K PR since this was my first 10K race.

My husband Jim did an AMAZING job taking 1st place in his Age Group and 26th place overall out of 1410 runners (did I mention I was 1138 - quite a difference there).  He is such an awesome runner and I am so proud of his running accomplishments.  You can read his blog post here.  He has a few race photos, etc.  But I just finished a 24 mile bike ride in 95 degree heat and just writing this post is all the energy I have........so sorry no race pics except this pre-race gem!