10 miles: RC Cola Moon Pie 10 miler

(From race-shirt)

This morning I ran in the RC Cola Moon Pie 10 miler. I was rather unsure how this would go. My left leg is still bothering me. My progressive goals were a overall pace of 1) 10:40 2) 10:30 and 3) 10:20. The range there is about my pace in the last marathon to my target marathon pace. The idea was to try to dial in a good target marathon pace and do this run as a marathon training run.


I had to stop right off the start for a bathroom break and then joined back up with the run. I took liquid at miles 4 and 6 and skipped the other official water breaks. It was a warm and somewhat humid southern morning but nothing too bad. It was actually ok for part of the run when there was a light breeze.


I got some advice some veteran runners (and fellow runitfast club members) at the start to run a decent pace until the major hill around mile 4 and then figure out how much to push it after that. So that's what I did. 


I walked that hill. It was short but steep. I probably walked it faster than I would have run it. I felt good at the top and started to pick up the pace. My overall average pace was around 10:20 at the top of the hill.


I felt decent from miles 4-6. I was running around a 10:10 pace. Somewhere around mile 6 I started to feel good and picked it up and keep between a 8:45 to 9:30 pace the rest of the way.  My time as tracked by my Garmin was 1:38:25 for an average pace of 9:46 (and distance of 10.06). I'll update that if there are official results published later (Update: Official time 1:38:23, two second difference, likely a second for me to hit start and stop on each end).

*Update: It occurs to me now I may have feel good from mile 6 on because it was slightly downhill from there on.


I enjoyed this run much more than any 5K I have ever done. I didn't really even feel all that great until mile 6 and then felt better and stronger with each mile. I bet more people would be into distance running if they could get past the first few miles.


Race review:
It was a fun run and the overall organization was good. The one poor spot was parking. It cost 5 bucks to park but there was no information about this ahead of time. Five is fine but not knowing ahead of time wasn't. I was lucky to have cash on me. 


Race packet pick up and timing was fine. Run by Nashville striders (a club), so it wasn't surprising to see that part go well.  There was no signs saying which way it was to the start of the race. The start was out of the area of the town square. I had to ask a race official where the start was. It's a small town and so following the crowd would work but signs would have been helpful.


The start was on time (roughly). The course was rolling hills with one big one around mile 4. Water stops at mile 2, 4, 6 and 8. There was also an unofficial (I think) water stop at the top of the hill run by a local family (I'm guessing). They had great cold cold water. Another person had set up a water spray station (I ran in it of course).


Accents. Everyone seemed to have a good southern accent except me. It was "fun" to listen to other runners. Three people asked me where I was from because I didn't sound like I was from around there. People along the course were very supportive. A few cars on the road but that is understandable as they likely had places to be and things to do. It's a very rural county area. 


Race finish. There was a nice little hill at the start of the last mile to remind you it wasn't over yet.  Good finish with water provided right there.


Afterwards: There was a spread of food (moon pies?) but there was a line for it and I had to get going. I'm not really into standing it lines and didn't want to eat anything anyway. It looked fine for the people that were into standing in line for moon pies.


Overall: I will definitely try to do this run again next year. I now have a time to beat and had fun. The goal for next year is to beat my time and figure out what a moon pie is.