Happy Saturday you guys! Today marks one week since I wrapped up my first race of the year with the Capital City Classic 10k! I can’t think of a better way to kick off the Spring racing season than with such a great race. Let’s recap, shall we?
We basically had the BEST possible weather ever Saturday morning. If only every single race could be bright and sunny, breezy but warm between middle 50-70’s–I’d be a happy runner 105% of the time. I’d also probably get in some amazing times every race too which would be even better!
This was what my weather channel app told me to look forward to on race day! Pretty awesome.
I made sure to lay out my race day clothes Friday night because of the early wake up call in the morning. You can’t really see him much but Cooper was assisting me in my prep. (A.K.A. be extra lazy and take up half the area while I’m getting all my running gear out. What a help, right? ;))
This donut tank is probably my favorite running tank I own! It’s just too cute!
Race day morning we woke up around 6:30 to get dressed and head out by 7:15ish. The race started at 8AM and we live super close to the start so we had plenty of time. I actually wasn’t starving so this was the first race I’ve ever run without any pre-run fuel. I had a pretty regular sized dinner Friday night with a chicken sandwich but nothing too special. It actually worked out well for me though, so maybe for all of my future 10k’s/5k’s I may skip out on pre-race fuel! Who knows! Normally I have at least a banana or sometimes a small bagel beforehand. I did down some serious water though before we left just in case to make sure I was plenty hydrated.
Ben Rector was my playlist of choice for this race and it was perfect! Any Ben Rector fans out there? He’s one of my very favorites.
Nick actually ran this race with me! Somehow we didn’t get a single race photo of us together though…(slackers!) but he was honestly the main reason I got such a good time. He decided to run with me most of the race up until mile 5 so he paced me almost the entire time. It was fabulous and he really helped me push myself to a good pace that otherwise I normally would’ve probably chosen to slow just a bit.
I also somehow always forget to turn off my Garmin/RunKeeper apps right when I stop so there’s always a little bit of extra time/mileage on my summaries.
My official race time was 54:48 with an 8:50/per mile pace! It was a PR which I was so super excited about!
Nick finished in 51:20 because he sped up that last little bit and finished so fast! His times are my goals one day…. A girl can dream right?
My splits were really exciting! If you guys read along a few weeks ago we ran a 6 miler down by the river the weekend before this race to see what our pace might be. We weren’t too far off from this but during that previous run we did stop for water and had a small walk break! I was so surprised to see I kept my pace pretty consistent the entire time. Mile 5 I did stop a grab a cup of water. I haven’t mastered the whole run/drink method yet so I had to take a tiny walk break to down some quick water. We also started off pretty quickly because it was really crowded at the start and we were trying to get around the big group to get through to some room to run. My favorite part of this race was the FLAT course! See those elevation numbers? Yeah….that’s the best ever! Basically 0 incline the entire time.
I actually placed 9th in my age group which was pretty exciting because there were quite a few runners out there! Overall I was 46th for females too out of 241 racers. Nick placed 97th overall out of 188 so he did awesome too!! I told him this next race he’s running his pace the entire time so I don’t hold him back. 😉
We decided we earned some delicious Chick-Fil-A afterwards which was the perfect post-run fuel! YUM!
Overall, this was such a great race to jumpstart the season with. My legs felt so good the entire time and it was one of those “good run” days. You know those days where you feel like you could run forever? Yeah, it was one of those! Which of course, I absolutely love!! If only every run and race day could feel that way! I can’t wait to see how I can improve my time though throughout the season. Like I said before, I have quite a few races coming up so I’m pretty excited to see some new paces come in with each race day.
I’ll be back again next year for this race. It was organized and so much fun!
That’s a wrap for this recap!
I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your Saturday!
Questions for YOU:
1.) What’s your most recent PR for a 10k race?
2.) Any favorite post-run snacks you treat yourself with?
3.) What are your weekend plans?
As always, From Chelsea