Oktoberfest 5K and Lung Run 10K

After behaving all all summer when it came to racing I wound up running 2 in a 36 hour stretch. We'll just ignore the fact that breaking my no racing rule was a marathon back in July. To be fair though, my training did call for a race on Saturday and that was the only reason I did the Lung Run.

I've run Oktoberfest on an annual basis so I signed up again like the routine is has become. I had hoped to have a solid showing to see how my fitness has improved since finally cracking 20 back in July. It turned out to not be the best of nights. Heavy storms rolled through the area Thursday afternoon and night. It was drizzling up until race time. It was warm and extremely humid with a solid wind on top of it. I do horrible in humid weather. The course was also all torn up and muddy. Long story short, I turned in a solid, but not great effort for myself of 20:43. I started the race right where I needed to, but faded over the 2nd half as I had trouble regulating body temperature and overheated. It was by no means a goal race so the only goal was really to make it out injury free which I did.

Saturday morning was the Lung Run 10K starting at Montrose Beach. I actually ran the 3 miles from my home to the start as a warm up. The weather was much cooler in the morning, but extremely windy. More rain overnight also did not help the trail conditions. I knew going in that I was a shoo-in for a new PR, but didn't know by how much since it had been 2 years since I really raced a 10K.

I started near the front of the pack since I saw that puddles would cause an immediate narrowing of the course. I was behind about 15 runners at the start, but began passing people almost immediately. About a half mile in I surged past a group of 4 guys and found myself in 5th place. I could still see the lead runners, but they were pretty far ahead already. This meant I now had to take the brunt of the wind myself instead of using other runners as a shield. After another mile I was passed by a female runner. I wouldn't be passed again until over 5 miles into the race.

The course was a bit tough given the wind and the mud, but we were also sharing the path with the CES training groups and normal Saturday morning traffic since the race started later at 8:30AM. I'm sure this cost me some time, but I'm not going to fret about it too much. I fell into a steady rhythm and was running pretty well. I had a slight positive split since I think I lacked a little motivation to really push it in the 2nd half. The runners in front of me were too far away to try and reel in. I wound up finishing in 41:55 and 7th place overall. This was a PR by over 5 minutes for me.