Morton Pumpkin Fest 10K 2011

Today I ran the Morton Pumpkin Fest 10K; I’ve done it previously in 1997 and 1999 (42:xx), 2000 (44:xx), 2001 (52:xx, social run) 2002 (57:xx as a walker, bent knees), 2005 (49:xx as a runner), 2008 (57:xx as a runner).

There was the very real danger that I might set a personal worst today, though my training is starting to pick up a bit.

The weather was cool (50′s) with a breeze; the upshot is that I finished in 56:22 (my watch). The downside: I started too quickly (for me in my current conditioning): 8:40 mpm. It felt slow at first but after 2 miles, I could feel it draining me. so I made myself walk for a minute to recover and so I could run with a slower pack; the faster pack was sucking me along.

That went fine…until I got to mile 4 (35:30; 18:07 for the 2 mile stretch). That was starting to drain on me again. So I took one more 1 minute break and still reached mile 5 in 44:58. Then I should have gone into a “just finish” with dignity mode; instead I tried to pick it up. That lasted about 2:30 or so. Then I HAD to walk; I was wheezing like a steam engine. And yes, that MILF with short hair and shiny blue spandex shorts got away.

That last mile is always deceptive; you see the small Ferris wheel and the line for the pancakes and think that you are closer to the finish than you really are; you have to discipline yourself to push to the traffic lights in the distance (which are about 20-30 yards behind the true finish line). I hit mile 6 in 54:34 (9:36 with my unplanned walk) and managed to hold off one younger woman right at the line. Hey, it is still a race, isn’t it?

I walked back to get Tracy who was doing her “not quite running, not quite walking” and she finished just over 1:22. I met her at about 5.5 miles and yelled out “get going Lard Butt!” (Tracy is skinny). The policeman working traffic control laughed and asked “are you going to let him talk to you like that!” We finished together. In past years, she had run 1:06 (2005) and 1:03 (2002). We are all slowing down.

Still, even with the uneven pacing at the start and my foolish attempt to kick, this was my best running race of 2011..then again the bar is mighty low.

The good news: when I ran in the 42′s, only skinny women were ahead of me. Now, the women with bigger asses are ahead of me (not intentional on my part ) and almost all of them were in lycra! Now if only I were fast enough to stay in sight of them longer…that’s incentive to train, right?