10k complete and I still have my legs

So I pulled it off. The 10k race wasn't as rough and tough as I thought it would be. Jen, my dad and my stepmother, Marie got up plenty early so we could make it to Boulder City in time for me to stretch and mentally prepare for the run. It only took us about 40 minutes to get there. There were probably at least 500 runners there for all the different races, and I'm told that's actually a fairly small event. I guess a lot of these runs usually have thousands of racers. Holy crap!

Jen and I after the race. The view during the run was amazing.

Anyway, I enjoyed a nice meal the night before at my dad's house, so I felt great when I was at the staging area. When the gun went off I didn't reach the pad for my timing chip for about a minute, because I was in the back, but when I crossed it, I started my watch. Right off the bat, I was surprised by the course. I thought there would be rolling small hills, but the hills were about 1/4 mile each. However, it was nice because for every time I went up, I was able to catch my breath going down, so it made for nice intervals the entire way.

At about the 1.5-mile marker I saw Jen's brothers Tim and Zack at a little parking lot next to the road. They were in town shooting footage of one of the other longer races for their work and I waved to them on my way by. I was worried about my foot hurting before the race, but to my surprise, I was feeling good and didn't have any problems during the race. The temperature was perfect, the aid stations were a nice relief and it felt like I was passing more people than were passing me. I truly believe the altitude drop played to my advantage, because I felt great in the cardio department, way better than any time I ever ran a 10k on the treadmill back home.

Me during the final stretch. I had to dodge the guy and his kid.

With about a half a mile left, I picked up the pace, hoping I could finish strong. By about 1/4 mile left, I looked at my watch and I was shocked to see that my time wasn't far off a pace of finishing in under an hour. I went into a sprint for the finish, which thankfully, was downhill. I ran into a bit of a traffic jam by the time I hit the finish line and had to maneuver around a few people at the last second. My family was there cheering me on as I finished and it felt great. I looked at my watch and it said 1:00.14. But when I looked up at the big clock on the finish line it said 1:05.31. At first, I thought my watch was broken and I was disappointed to see that I didn't get anywhere close to under one hour. But today, the official results were posted online and my chip time is listed as 1:00.12. I only missed under an hour by 12 seconds! My goal was to go in under 1:05.00, so I absolutely killed my previous best time. Awesome. I ended up finishing 50th overall out of 161 runners, and 3rd out of males in my age group, so I was certainly satisfied with that, considering I started near the back of the pack.

A few minutes before race time.

I'm still very sore today and my feet are hurting a bit, but I think I've gained some confidence to move forward and start training for my first 1/2 marathon while my shoulder heels up and I can't swim.

Total distance: 6.2 miles running