Hot Chocolate 15K Race Report

As with all race reports, let’s start with the weather.  When we arrived it was a windy 50 degrees, which made for a chilly walk to bag drop off.  Luckily, bag drop off was indoors and plenty warm.  Unfortunately an hour or so later when we made our way to the starting line it was a windy 44 degrees.  Oh and I tripped jumping the barricade getting into the starting coral.  I thought I only hurt my pride until someone pointed out my left hand was dripping blood.  It really wasn’t that bad but I was bleeding like it was.

The first couple miles I was working a bit harder to maintain my goal pace than I thought should be necessary.  Only at the 5K mark did I realize we were running slightly uphill the entire time.  The 5K split was 23:33 (7:36 pace).  Right where I wanted to be, but working harder than I should have.  Just outside of the mile four water station was a pretty big hill (for Dallas standards) and my pace suffered accordingly.  Hit the 10K split at 47:13 (7:37 pace).  I felt pretty strong going into the final 5K.  The end was a bit tricky mentally.  At mile 8 you enter the fairgrounds, but it feels like you are done.  I constantly felt the end was just around the corner, even though my gps clearly said I had a mile to go, only to be disappointed.  I finished in 1:11:04 (7:38 pace).  Good enough for 173^th overall (out of 3759 finishers) and 20^th (out of 171) in my age/gender group.

Couple things of note:

• My little sister finished in an impressive 1:26:17 for her first ever race.  With even 5K splits and all!  I’m so proud of her.
• Gatorade in a cut doesn't feel good at all. 
• The little Dallas hills are going to be the flat sections of TransRockies, I really need to get better at hills.
  
• Treadmill hill intervals seem to be helping with recovering  on the flat / downhill sections. 
• I was right at my goal half marathon pace for this race, but there is no way I could have kept it up for another 3.8 miles.
• I’m only down 7 pounds; I need at least another 7-10 to make sub 1:40 possible.  I don’t think 3 weeks is enough time.
• Surprisingly, hot chocolate and bananas dipped in chocolate fondue both make great post-race treats.
• Not sure how I'm going to "race" the 10K; go all out, or practice half-marathon pace. 
• I really need to find my old race results, this may be my fastest 15K.