Zimmerman Kiser Sutcliffe Winter Park Road Race 10k & 2 Mile

Busy, busy, busy. Party. Exhausted. Nap. Food. Bubbly.

That was pretty much day!

This morning I ran the Winter Park Road Race 10K + 2 mile. It was held in GORGEOUS Winter Park, FL and ran by Track Shack. It was the perfect race day. The weather was chilly in the morning (high 50s, lows 60s) and got a little warmer as the morning went on, but it was far from hot.

This was my first race that I ran WITHOUT my running buddy Paula. I cried a little. It was still fun, but it’s definitely MORE fun when you are running with friends! I have a feeling we will both be running this race together next year 🙂

I woke up @ 4:30 and forced myself out of bed. I really didn’t want to get up. Good thing I already paid for the race! I spent most of the night waking up to see what time it was – so I was dragging. I got ready, drank my coffee, and then woke the kids up. My mom and Norm were taking my car to the race a little later than me (so they didn’t have to wake up an hour earlier!). I left the house around 5:50 and make it to Winter Park by 6:15. There wasn’t any traffic and I hit almost all green lights 🙂 Track Shack makes events easy and has race packet picket the day of — so I grabbed my stuff (and a really nice Tech Tee!), quickly ran back to the car to drop everything off, made a porta potty pit stop, and then lined up for the 2-mile run. My mom called 2 minutes before we started running to let me know they were there. Just in time!

The 2-mile run went by REALLY fast! Once I got past the crowd (which was pretty easy – surprisingly) I zipped through the course. I was suprised when I looked down at my Garmin at Mile 1 and it said 8:15. I didn’t really feel like I was running that fast! My second mile was 8:11. I saw my coworker John pass me with about .25 to go — woo-hoo Go John!  My official time was 16:46 — but it wasn’t based on chip time (they didn’t have a thingy at the start — only the finish). My unofficial Garmin time was 16:29 (Garmin said I ran 2.01 miles). Yay! Per my Garmin, I ran at an 8:13 pace.

(Sorry these pictures are crappy from my iPhone)

I had about 15 minutes until my next race so I gave my kids/mom hugs and kisses, chugged some water, and got in line for race #2. While in line (allll by my selfffff) some seemingly random guy came up to me and asked me if I graduated from Boone High School. My answer was something like, “Ummmm…yes.” Since people don’t usually recognize me or approach me from high school I was rather surprised. Then I realized who it was — Joe Bivins! (You guys who read this who went to high school with me will know who I’m talking about). It was REALLY weird seeing someone you hadn’t seem in almost 15 years (old <—- that’s me). Especially when you don’t remember being particularly friendly with them. Still, it was fun to catch up. We chatted about 10 minutes before the race started though (apparently, we’ve actually ran a lot of race together this year!) and started the race together. I’m not quite sure when he finished — but I hope he had a great race.

We started the race @ 7:35 and first ran along Park Ave., down around the corner, past the church that Dan went to when he was growing up and into a GORGEOUS residential area along Lake Knowles. Honestly, this was one of the NICEST courses I’ve run — so pretty and shady. There were some little hills and it would alternate between asphalt and cobblestone (not a fan of cobblestone), but it was generally flat and fast.

My goal was to run a sub 9:00 pace. I knew that it was COMPLETELYdoable — and it was! Here are my splits:

• Mile 1 – 8:58
• Mile 2 – 8:48
• Mile 3 – 8:45
• Mile 4 – 8:46
• Mile 5 – 8:36
• Mile 6 – 8:47
• .32 – 8:28 (I was not awesome with the course tangents – and there were a lot of twists and turns)

Official time: 55:16 (8:45 pace) — Instant PR!

Here’s the course (yes, I took a picture of the race packet):

Sadly, I don’t have ANY pictures from this run because I had to bring my phone with me (it’s either/or) — but here are some pictures I stole off the interwebz.

You get the gist 🙂

After the race I met up with my family and spotted John who ran the race in 53 minutes!! We then waited for another coworker, Susanne, who finished in 1:06ish — about 6 minutes faster than she expected. A great day all around!

Then we enjoyed some fresh fruit (strawberries and bananas), granola bars, and Panera coffee.

 

So in summary — awesome race, great morning, and just the start to my day. If you live in the Orlando area and are looking for a really fun 10K  this race is for you! Of course, this is my first 10k – but it was a great race experience — and for the money ($42) I got a lot of out it!

This was just part one of my day…more to come 🙂