Race Report: Cinco de Mayo 10K

On Sunday (May 6), Luke and I ran the Cinco de Mayo 10K. It's a beautiful out and back through Star Pass resort in western Tucson.  The route is full of rolling hills with about 250 ft elevation gain over all. This is one of my favorite races in Tucson because of the atmosphere and b/c they always give the best (gender-specific!) tech t-shirts. I love my t-shirt from last year and I can see this year's is also going to get a ton of wear.

Like most races, it started at 7am. Because it's Tucson, we were already feeling hot by the start.








Luke and I started out together and kept pace for the first 2 miles, and then I needed to slow down to recover a bit. He ran on ahead and I kept a nice and easy pace through the 3.1 mile turn around. After the midway point I was really dragging.  I hadn't eaten enough for breakfast and my legs felt heavy and tired. I had plenty of water, but I needed some sugar and thought "it's only a 10K! I don't need nutrition!" right, unless you only have a few pieces of pineapple for breakfast, and then those sports beans really come in handy.

I had started up one of the hills and locked into my little-engine-that-could mode, when a woman in her 50s jogged up behind me, put her hand on my back and said, "Isn't that easier? You can do this. You can run much faster than this. Go get 'em!" And... I did. Something about her gentle hand on my back and her100% positive enthusiastic support made something click. All of a sudden my brain said, "she's right! you CAN go faster than you are! You won't keel over and die, I promise!" Then my legs kicked in, and I took off flying. I wasn't keeping pace while running, but I"m betting I was doing about 11:30 min miles when she met me. Considering I ran the entire course in 1h2min22sec, I'm pretty sure I ran those last 2 or so miles at near a 9 min mile pace. I was still pretty beat when I had the final incline up to the finish line, but I finished strong and confident. I've never had anyone support me in a race in that way and clearly that is the style of encouragement that works for me. A gentle hand saying: I'm with you, we can do this, let's go faster. (works much better than the coach-style of "you can run faster, come and catch me!" which I don't respond well to at all).

At the end of the race there is a mariachi band and breakfast burritos. Luke finished in 54 min and met me at the finish. Not interested in food, I did scarf down the slushie he was holding. Note to self - a slushie post-race is more refreshing than anything else in the world. Cooled me down and got me the sugars I needed right away! We weren't hungry so we grabbed our burritos to go and ate them when we got home.

One more race after this one and then I'm done for the season. By next Sunday, I will have run 8 races since November - I think I'm entitled to a break :)

Course: Cinco de Mayo 10K
time: 1h2min22sec