Gusto 15K Race Report

This morning’s run was awesome!  I didn’t feel fantastic, but I definitely felt good.  I kept up a 10:30-ish min/mi pace for the whole run…YAY!  

When I picked up my race packet last night, one of the guy’s at the pick-up table was an associate of the owner of the restaurant (Perico’s) where the pick-up was happening, was talking me up.  He was amazed that I had driven down from Austin to run this race.  Anyway, when I showed up this morning for the race, I was standing there just waiting and the same guy walked up to me and said hello, then called over this other guy who was a race volunteer and told him that I had driven all the way from Austin for the race.  The lady standing next to me heard this and told me she had come down from Austin as well.  In fact, she’s completely new to Texas.  She just moved down here from North Carolina at the beginning of June!  So, we were talking about our runs and our goals.  She has the goal to run a half marathon in each of the 50 states.  So do I!!!  She’s done 13 so far.  Anyway, she looked down at my shoes for whatever reason and noticed I didn’t have my timing chip and promptly told me to go get it.  Duh!  I didn’t even realize that there wasn’t a timing chip on the back of the bib like there has been in my last few races.

The race started shortly after 7am and the sun was barely up.  The humidity was around 45%, so it wasn’t all yucky feeling out.  And the temperature was in the mid to upper 70’s.  Really nice for a race start.  The good news is, I remembered to start my Garmin as I crossed the starting point timing pad.  We made a quick loop around the parking lot and then headed for the trail (Salado Creek Greenway).  The trail was, I would estimate, about 90% shaded (the ENTIRE way!!!).  The trees lining the trail were all tall.  The scenery was fantastic.  I didn’t obsess about checking my pace…in fact I kept forgetting to check it.  But, when I did check it, it was always between 10:15 and 10:50 min/mi, so I knew I had found the right pace for today. 

Something that surprised me was that there was a guy all dressed up like the Crocodile Hunter (seriously) and he was wearing crocs on his feet.  Yes, that’s right, crocs to run in. 

At mile 2.75, I ate my first gel.  I decided that I would try something new (I know, it’s blasphemy doing something new during a race).  I decided not to stop to take in my gels.  I was going to take them in AS I was running.  It was a little awkward with breathing, but I managed it.  And mile 5.75, I took in my second gel…again, awkward with the breathing, but otherwise, not too bad.  So, I didn’t have to stop at all during the entire run!  When I ran out of Gatorade in my handheld bottle, I just shuffled my fuel belt bottles so that the full ones were on the right side so I could get to them with my free hand. 

I crossed the finish line, according to my Garmin, in 1:38:18.  That’s an average pace per mile of 10:34.  Not too shabby!  Truthfully, I was hoping to hit an average pace of around 10 minutes per mile, but I’m not disappointed.  It would have been fantastic to place in my age group since it wasn’t a big race, but oh well…not this time.  Maybe if they had broken up the age groups into 5 year increments instead of 10 years then I would have placed.  But, again, oh well.  I’m not butthurt over it.  I don’t know exactly how I placed because the results aren’t posted yet, even though the announcer lady told me that they would be posted by the beginning of this afternoon.  So, I’ll post those on here when they DO post to their website.

 

Race results posted to the website right as I was posting this blog…so here you go!