Running Through Life Race Report – The Spectrum 10K 3/17/12

Posted by ryanhaag on Mar 19, 2012 in My Race Calendar, Race Reports | 0 comments

Running Through Life Race Report

Spectrum 10K 

March 17, 2012 –Ivins,UT

 

This year I am going to do a Running Through Life Race Report on each of the races that I run.  Hopefully you will enjoy reading and it will be a great journal for me of my race year.  The St George area races are a lot of fun for me because it gives me the chance to take a short trip with friends and family since St George is about a three and a half hour drive from home.  We have some great neighbors who let us use their condo so it makes for an inexpensive getaway.  My brother-in-law JJ and I have a good routine.  We drive down Friday afternoon and hit the Brick Oven restaurant for some pasta and then get to bed early.  We run the race the next morning, get a quick shower and hit Jimmy John’s for some great sandwiches before heading for home.  The whole trip takes us about 24 hours.  

I ran The Spectrum 10K last year but I had forgotten just how great this run really is.  It is a growing race but continues to be very organized.  My guess is that there were about 800-900 runners who are all bussed to the starting line.  The race started on time without a hitch, there were plenty of port-a-potties at the starting line and they had plenty of food and drink at the finish line.  The organizers of the St George City Races do a great job.  It was chip timing which is always nice and the shirts were great St Patrick’s Day technical running shirts, all green with a 4 leaf clover.  

The race starts in beautifulSnowCanyonwhich is some of the prettiest red rock country that you will find anywhere in the world.  It is nice to look around at the beautiful scenery for the first few miles.  We were worried that it might be quite windy starting this race because a storm was moving in on Saturday but luckily it held off until later in the day.  The wind kicked up a little at the starting line and for the first couple of miles but nothing too bad.  The temperature was very pleasant probably around 50 degrees and cloudy.  

I wasn’t very smart in starting this race because I probably should have been in the middle of the pack but started near the back so I spent the first few minutes of the race weaving through runners.  I looked at my watch after .15 miles and I was running a 10:21 pace which was quite a bit slower than my goal of staying under 8 minute miles.  Luckily after a couple of minutes it thinned and I was able to settle in where I wanted to be.  This race has some pretty good downhill for the first 3-5 miles and I was able to bank some time to save up for later in the race which is needed because the last 2 miles have some small hills.  I felt really good throughout the race.  At about the 4 mile mark I passed a speedy neighbor of mine named Brittany who I think was right on my tail the rest of the way.  Brittany was dressed in her best St. Patrick’s Day gear, as were many of the runners.  I’m usually not as festive as I should be and I actually had forgotten that the race was on St. Patty’s Day until we got our shirts.  I had several runners that I was flip-flopping spots back and forth with throughout the race that were motivating me to keep pushing.  Specifically I had 2 ladies who pushed me a lot and I found myself behind both of them coming down the home stretch.  They gave me my motivation to give a good finishing kick into the finish line and I was able to edge them both out.  (I’m not sure they knew we were racing though or they probably could have whooped me.)  I felt that I ran about as good of a race as I could and it was nice at the finish line to feel the dry heaves coming on for a minute or two which tells you that you gave it your all.  I haven’t felt those in a while.  I ran a 7:44 overall pace.  My mile splits  were kind of all over the board because of the hills.  They were at 7:34, 7:54, 7:24, 7:33, 8:04, 8:15, and my last .2 was at a 6:13 pace because of my competitive side.  I was 131^st place overall and finished 18^thfor 35-39 year old men.  After I finished I grabbed some water, bananas and chocolate milk and watched JJ push it in to the finish line.  He ran a great race too and we both had a blast.  It was a great start to the racing season and will hopefully lead to many more.

Keep “Running Through Life”