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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Crescent City Classic

I kind of had a "meh" day at the Classic this year. It was actually a really nice day for a 10k, especially given how hot this race can be: it was pretty cool and overcast, a little breezy, with the only drawback being 85% humidity. David and I brought a friend from church to the start and parked in my work garage. It's only half a mile from the start, so we walked.
 I got in a decent warm up before they closed the corrals. I was in seeded corral C, which I begged for - I had not run any of the qualifying races, so I kind of had to do some explaining to get a seeded bib (the cut-off for C corral was 45 minutes, though, so I thought it was fair to give some equivalent times). Ever since the tighter corral enforcements took effect, the start at the CCC is smooth and easy - considering there are like 25,000 runners (some sources say 44,000. That is a huge discrepancy. I tend to believe 25,000 is more accurate). I ran in a crowd for almost the whole race, but the start was especially tight. I was trying to figure my German garmin out. It worked, but the average pace was not showing all the time - it was blank for good parts of miles 1 and 3 (oddly). I had to ask those around me for our pace.
This is a really boring race report because I ran high 6:40's/low 6:50's the whole race and could not get my engines started for some reason. I didn't feel tired, I just couldn't speed up. Maybe it was the humidity; maybe it was my really bad allergies (being able to breath would be nice), maybe it was the antihistamine I took making me lethargic. The only excitement came around mile 6, when - right at the turn to the finish - we were stopped by an ambulance! I never heard what happened to the person (runner? spectator?) but it must have been serious for the ambulance to cross the race course. I didn't actually come to a stop, just jogged a large loop around. None of the runners really knew what to do! Hopefully, the victim is fine; I imagine that if there had been poor outcomes it would have been a news story, so thing it ended well.


Then it was over, 42:41, slower than I'd like (and poor tangents/crowd running on my part, too). But hey. A year after I was cleared to run and I can still finish top 500! Yay!

9 comments:

  1. Nice work! I think you did awesome, all things considered. That sucks that the German watch let you down in terms of giving you your pace, though! How annoying!

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  2. The temps were nice, but it was a smidge humid, IMO. I finished up a 21-miler right around 8 am and was so ready to be done. I was hoping to bring my oldest son to spectate, but by the time I finished my long run, the logistics of trying to eat something + getting over to City Park + finding somewhere to park + walking = no thank you.

    Anyway, looks like a decent race for you coming off a marathon + reduced mileage. Gearing up for a strong summer!

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  3. I'm still amused by your German Garmin. That reminds me of a (possibly apocryphal) story of a circus elephant that one circus acquired from another back in the Depression. Legend had it that the new owners deemed the elephant the stupidest they'd ever seen, unable to follow instructions...until it dawned on them that she'd been trained in German.

    Anyway, that is a huge race! And good on you for sticking it out despite feeling leaden. I definitely know that feeling, and to feel like that in a race is the worst - it's like, what's the point then?

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  4. Your German Garmin..ha ha! makes me laugh. too early to laugh out loud but I am laughing inside. And a year after being cleared to run and a 42:xx 10k...not bad at all my friend!! gotta feel good about any day you can be out there running injury free. And your German watch... ha!

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  5. All that matters here is that you ran it in your corral cut-off time and didn't make a liar of yourself. Oh, and the person that needed the ambulance was okay.

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  6. I am a bit behind on my blog reading. Sounds like a fast 10k to me!

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