ZKS Winter Park Road Race 10K – 2014 – {Race Recap}

I’ve haven’t talked about it much, I had a race this weekend. The ZKS WPRR 10K (so many acronyms, so little time)…

Of course, I spent the entire week before the race doing this…

Yes, sitting on my butt, with a glass of wine in hand.

I have been insanely busy these last few weeks. I mean, how is it MARCH? Between managing the kids, social activities, visiting family, and allergies (OMGTHEYAREHORRIBLE) I’ve felt very overwhelmed. The time change was the icing on the cake. It has been BRUTAL. I am exhausted during the day, but wide awake at night. So instead of trying to “stay on schedule” and fit my workouts in – I caved and focused on relaxing. Or not doing anything.

I started questioning this strategy on Thursday though, when I actually felt better and wanted to work out again. But, I stuck with it until Saturday. I don’t normally taper for 10Ks (or even halfs!) but I figured this might help me PR.

So then, I stayed up WAAAAAY too late on Friday night watching Veronica Mars

(it was worth  it)

THEN I had to deal with multiple kid wake ups throughout the night. A #motherrunner never sleeps. I probably got about 3 hours of sleep and REALLLLY did not want to get up on Saturday. My alarm didn’t even go off though – E woke up at 4:55 and that was that. Sigh.

I have to say, it’s times like these that I’m thankful I have a race buddy – because I KNEW I had to get my booty in gear to go pick her up. She really didn’t want to run this race either – so I couldn’t skip out on her. Plus…. I really wanted that damn PR.

I picked her up around 6:20 and we headed over to Winter Park. We made it in plenty of time to grab our bibs and drop out stuff at the car. My bladder decided it was going to be a jackass though and with about 15 minutes until the start I got in the LOOOONG line to use the porta potty. I amazingly made it to the start with a few  minutes to spare, but I’m couldn’t find Paula.

My A goal for this race was sub-53. I don’t know WHY, but I figured if I could run 53:xx during a half marathon I would be able to hit 52:xx during a 10K. Spoiler: I did not hit this goal. However, my B goal was to PR – and truthfully dealing with a crappy night’s sleep, allergies (my nose was a mess the ENTIRE run), and 95% humidity – I am very happy about hitting this goal!

The gun went off at 7:30. The first mile I went out I felt like I was continuously dodging people. I love Track Shack races, I really do, but I do not love how crowded the starts are. Or maybe it’s just the people lining up in their wrong pace groups? I was really spoiled at BDR a few weeks ago. I actually watched a dude totally cut off another dude and then practically come to a halt within the first half mile. He didn’t even apologize – but gave the person he cut off a dirty look! So rude.

In any case, unlike most races – the first mile was way slower than I expected. I saw it pop up on my Garmin and thought “GET MOVING woman.” Which explains the much faster 2nd mile! I don’t really remember much from these miles, by the way, except I was constantly staring at the ground trying not to trick on the brick. Oh, the brick. I always forget how much brick there is on this course. And hills. You can kind of tell there’s some elevation… it’s still Florida, but this is probably the hilliest race I run.

Random, but I also remember checking out all of the cute shorts that other women were wearing. Man, there are a lot of cute running shorts out there right now.

I kept it fairly steady until about Mile 4 when I thoughts – how did I run this fast 2 weeks ago? Hmmm… maybe if I hadn’t sat on my ass the entire week I could have been a little speedier? I reallllly slowed it down at Mile 5 because there was this guy who was running next to me and it was starting to drive me crazy. He would get in my space during turns (and there were a lot of turns) and then it felt like he was drafting me. Me no likey. So I let him run ahead of me – just enough to keep in eyesight.

Around Mile 5.75, I was ready to dig deep and just FINISH. So I pushed myself. It felt horrible, but there was this girl next to me who kept speeding up every time I sped up. And, duh, we were racing (I lost). Then I saw the dude. I knew I was going to pass him and finish before him – but I turned around as I passed him and shouted “Come on – let’s go!” He either thought I was a major bitch or just crazy because he did not. You better believe I beat him.

And FINALLY, I was done.

Garmin OFF. Lol.

My official results say my net time and my course time are the same – but my Garmin begs to differ.

 

• Course time/net time: 53:47
• Garmin time: 53:17

I definitely didn’t start immediately when the gun when off – but I’m going with their time if that means I’ll be able to PR again the next time I run a 10K. Although, hopefully it will be sub-53:00!

After the race, I grabbed my medal and some water — and immediately ran into Tyler – my new race buddy. This time, I remembered to take a picture!

I did not see him during the race this time (he finished sub 50:00 — so speedy!!), but it was great catching up with him afterwards. Sidenote: he ran Sarasota the day AFTER and PR’d there as well. What a rockstar!)

We then found Paula and a whole slew of other people we knew, including my coworker BK who ran his first 10k!

Man, I know a lot of runners! I love it.

So in short: There was a lot of brick and hills, I PR’d, I can still run faster and I will, and runners are the best 🙂