Spring Thaw 10 Miler: a "race" recap

On Saturday, I ran the Spring Thaw 10 Mile race that took place in North Park. I had signed up back in the throes of my "I'm gonna run a marathon" high a few months ago, since I had 10 miles on the schedule and it's always nicer to run when people hand you cups of water every few miles and plop a medal around your neck once you're done.
Sounds good in theory, until you wake up on the morning of and it's -3 degrees outside. "I could just crawl back into bed until the temperature reaches double digits..."

But the dog had to pee at 5:30am, and then I was up.
Anyone else feel an inordinate amount of stress having to get to an unfamiliar place at a very specific time? I spent the entire morning calculating how long it would take to get up, eat breakfast, take Sam to doggie day care, get to North Park, find where I was going, pick up my race packet, etc etc.

I got there way earlier than I meant to, had my race bib pinned on by about 8:45am and then had more than an hour to kill. I HATE unfamiliar places. I found the barn where registration was, but that's not where the bag drop was, so I braved the cold walk over to the drop-off place (the boathouse) only to find out there wasn't a place to hang out over there.
So back to the barn I went. It was nice to people-watch for a little while and scope out the Pittsburgh running scene, I guess, but going to a race alone in a new city is a little lonely..

The race started at 10am. There was a 10, 15 or 20-mile option, depending on how many 5-mile loops you felt like suffering through doing.

Starting line in the distance

By the time the race started, it was a balmy 5 degrees. The kind of cold where you feel the lining of your nose freezing every time you breathe. I seriously don't own any legitimate running clothes because I'm stubborn and kind of cheap, so I was dressed in regular old leggings (not any particular special warm kind), a tank top, a long-sleeve shirt, and the lining to my ski jacket - which I like to refer to as my space jacket, because it's lined with some kind of silver material that leads me to believe it retains warmth.

All bundled up.
In my fiance's fashionable ski neck warmer and the liner to my ski jacket.
Because I don't own actual running gear.

I was not racing this. Story for another day, but I have determined that my knees/lower limbs can really only handle mileage increases if I significantly decrease speed. So this was planned as a training run in the ~10:30 pace range, which is my "super easy this feels like walking" speed and pretty tolerable for my knees on my long runs.

Loop #1: Miles 1-5

• Mile 1: 10:17
• Mile 2: 10:11
• Mile 3: 10:30
• Mile 4: 10:14
• Mile 5: 10:26

First loop was kind of getting my bearings. I had never seen North Park before, but I had heard of those lake loops. And for some reason, I envisioned "lake loops" as some scenic flat gravel trail right next to a pretty (frozen) lake... similar to a reservoir near my old house in CT. I was not correct. 

It was paved, kind of hilly, and about 2% of that 5-mile loop was on a road that was not canted significantly to the left or right racetrack-style.

In the beginning, I stuck near the 10:30 pacer, which seemed like a good way for me to cool the competitive fire and not care that plenty of people were passing me... including people who appeared to be just walking quickly. There weren't a whole ton of people around and it was kind of boring/depressing.

In no-man's land...

Loop #2: Miles 6-10

• Mile 6: 10:17
• Mile 7: 10:08
• Mile 8: 10:14
• Mile 9: 9:57
• Mile 10: 9:45

The second loop was a bit more fun. I knew what I had coming up, and kept checking off little things as they went by... "water stop, first annoying hill, water stop, really winding road section, turn onto the main road, water stop, sidewalk..." I started "easy passing" people once I realized that I only had a few more miles to go, and my knees were feeling decent. "Easy passing" = attempting to pass people while still keeping the effort solidly easy. I haven't pushed the effort on a long run since my knees started causing trouble, and I didn't want to be sucked into that just because it was a timed race.

Showing off the goods

My official time was 1:42:35, a 10:16 pace - by my Garmin it was 10.08 miles, which just goes to show how winding those roads were. If it had been an actual race for me, I would've put more effort into the tangents. I seriously do not care what my pace is on my long runs nowadays, so 10:16 was fine by me.

Overall, it was a well-managed race. Boring, and not exactly scenic, but water stops every 1.5-ish miles was really nice, and they handed out some sort of energy gel at the 5 mile mark, which is great for people who enjoy/can stomach that. It would've been more fun if I had actually been racing and could stick with more of the "pack"... but I'll have to save that until after the marathon if I want to get to the starting line with knees intact.

"Spring Thaw"... psh.