Joe's Run 10k race report: A PR despite some difficulties

I didn't even think I was going to run this race until 30 minutes before the start. I knew it was going to be cold and windy and so the night before, I went out with friends and had more than my share of margaritas before switching over to wine.

("Why not have fun Friday night - especially if I'm not racing Saturday morning," I thought as I ordered another glass of Cabernet from the waiter at Taverna's wine/pizza bar in downtown Fort Worth)

I woke up this morning and headed immediately to the bathroom, where I spent a good 30 minutes wishing I hadn't drank so much and reading the newspaper. I could hear the wind blowing like crazy outside my window, like it was blowing before the start of the White Rock and Cowtown marathons.

There is no way I'm going to run this race, I thought. Then I figured, since I'd already paid the registration fee and was planning on running anyway, I might as well do it. Why not, right? So literally, at 7:30 for a race that was scheduled to start at 8, I pinned my bib number, went to the bathroom one more time just to be certain, got dressed and drove like a bat out of hell to the start of the race.

And that's when my problems began. As soon as I got out of the car, I realized I'd left my Garmin 305 at home. I had the heart-rate monitor strapped to my chest. But no Garmin. Now, what, I thought? I have NEVER EVER EVER run any race or training run without some kind of time contraption on my arm, whether it be a Garmin, Nike, or Polar.

Well, I guess there's a first time for everything, right. I'd have to run by feel, naked really. No instant feedback about minutes/mile or heart rate. And since I'd never run the course before, I had no idea where the mile markers were or how far we were from being done.

But at least I was warm in the mid 30s temps with wind gusts well over 30 mph. After a few delays, we were off. About 5 minutes into the race, I could feel that Cabernet-Margarita mix bubbling to the surface. Uh, oh, kinda early to be feeling this bad. But the worst to come was right around the corner, literally. We turned on a side street and to avoid stepping into a hole, I over-strided and landed funny on my left foot, causing the muscles around my shin to start cramping really badly.

Man, I thought, this isn't going so well. Now, Ive had this shin-injury dealy happen to me before in races and runs, so I knew if I'd slow down some, the pain would go away. But it was so intense that I stopped to try to massage the cramp out (and buy my lungs some time). After about 30 seconds, I took off again. I still wasn't feeling right, and we were now running into the wind (boy, Ive had experience with this, right?) but I just decided to gut it out.

Without my trusty old Garmin, it felt like I was running slow because my leg still hurt. At one point in the race, we hooked back up with the people who were running the 5k. Good, I thought, we are close to being done. There were a few rolling hills near the end, the kind of hills that I gobbled up during training runs, but now, with this sore shin muscle and shaky stomach, those hills (combined with the 30-plus mph winds) might as well have been mountains.

Finally, I could see the finish line and put in a finishing kick that had me passing quite a few people. My goal had been to run this thing in 42 minutes or better, but I knew with the weather conditions and my bad day that 42 minutes would be impossible. My second goal was to at least break my PR of 44:25, so when I turned the corner and saw the clock at the finish line reading 43 and change, I was decidedly happy.

My official time was 43:49, a pace of 7:04 m/m and a PR by 36 seconds. I finshed 15th overall out of 285 finishers.

There was a little confusion about exactly where in my age group I finished. The results posted on the side of a trailer at the race said I was the second-place male in the 40-44 age group. But then, when I went to get my award, they said I was the first-place male in my age group. Hmm, I figured, that means the fastest guy in my age group won the Masters Category, leaving me with a No. 1 finish, a nice trophy, and a well-deserved nap.