The Toughest 10K in Texas - Race Report

I went out and ran the “Toughest 10Km in Texas” this morning. (10km = 6.1 miles, for my metric readers) A cute name, but I don’t think it lives up to the “toughest”. However, one must give credit where credit is due. It’s certainly not an easy course, and it has 3 tough hills to climb, and is almost constantly up and down.

I decided this morning (mostly due to the good songs that energized me on the way out there) to test my fitness, but not kill myself or re-aggravate any lingering IT Band issues. The first four hundred meters or so are around a baseball and soccer field so plenty of space to “jockey for a position” before you jump into the trails. I think I came into the trail system around 30th. Didn’t want to get stuck behind slower people on the single man trails, but also didn’t need to get crazy.
It’s weird, in these semi short trail races, if you’re going to pass people, it’s usually between 18 and 30 minutes in. It’s all the yahoos that are simply not seasoned for what’s ahead and lack the trail hills training. You then may pass a few more in the second half that are fading. Over the course of the race, I passed about 12 to 15 people or so, and only 1 runner passed me. That’s pretty much close to perfect in terms of my strategy.

I took a Hammer gel 30 minutes in to have fresh legs for the 2nd half. For what I think was mile 4 and 5, I ran with anbother guy, alternating who was the rabbit. We never caught anyone, and never got caught either. I eventually ran away from the guy, and ran for quite some time on my own, just hoping to spot a rabbit ahead of me to catch.
The 5K and 1 mile walk merged into the 10K race with about a mile to go, so it got a little confusing to figure out who was a struggling 10k’er, and who was a 5k runner. No offense to the 1mile walkers, but you people stood out like golfers on a rugby field.

I’m happy with my last mile. I kept the pace, and kicked a bit towards the finish, coming in at 48:27. It’s hard to compare 10k trail races, as none are precise in distance and certified, but if it was correct, I marked a new record by a minute and a half. Not bad for my second week back after a 6 week injury layoff.

After the race, I found out that there was a little discrepancy on some overall times as apparently many people ran a shorter distance by missing a turn or two. I think that’s pretty accurate, as I know I passed on guy around 16-17 minutes in, and he never caught and passed me, but he was announced as 2nd in his Age Group with a time that was 2 minutes faster than mine. Also, not to take anything away from this other lady, but I got beat by a woman in the 55-59 age group by 4 minutes!!
What WHAT!!??!?!?!? :)

No big deal though, as I'm only 2 weeks back from my 6 week injury and testing:
- my fitness level
- my legs on tough hills
- my stamina
...and my Age Group finish and personal time are what mattered today.

I definitely have plenty fitness to gain back / room for improvement, but overall, I’m very happy with my performance this early in the season!

The course was great - I'll be back next year!