Wears Valley 15K

On Sunday, Sept 16 I ran in the Wears Valley 15K, which is sponsored and hosted by the Knoxville Track Club. The Knoxville Track Club is awesome and they really do a good job keeping an organized race schedule and drawing really good runners to their races. There is a schedule of races that are for 'series points' and those are the ones that draw all the local top runners. This was a points race, and boy did I get smoked. Well, I didn't show up expecting to win the race, but my 1:13:57 was nowhere near the top 3, even in my age group. After I wiped away the tears of not winning anything at a race for the first time, I reflected and realized I ran a pretty damn good race.

First off, I had to wake up at 5:30 am and down an iced tea, to get the ole' bowels moving. I was crossing my fingers and hoping this pre-race routine would work, and at about 7:45 (15 minutes before the start of the race) I knew that it did. I was beginning to worry there for a bit. So after I took care of my business, I headed to the start line. I didn't feel 'ready' at all. I was about to run 9.3 miles in a race, which I've never done before, on top of that I've been having IT pain for the past 2 weeks and didn't finish any of my long runs. So I thought this was going to be a "lets just finish" type of race, but it turned out to be quite the opposite.

So the race starts after a fellow runner sang the national anthem--despite the fact he needed a cue card--and forgot a lyric but quickly recovered--he did alright. Did I mention it was about 55F outside!!!! Perfect running weather. I actually wore long sleeves. Once the race began, I found my pack of comparable runners and stuck with it--the first 3 miles we came in around 25:00 flat. Not too bad.

The pack started to string out a little around mile 4, most of them dropping back. (because I am the bomb and they couldn't hang w/me.....but one guy was determined to stay right in front of me......) So this guy, I never got his name because he wasn't much of a talker, was literally like a foot in front of me from miles 4-7. No big deal. He was a little older and a little bigger than me, so I got the impression that he didn't want to get passed by a young punk like me. When I sped up, he sped up. I went right, he went right......this went on for 7 miles.

So, at mile 7, he SPEAKS!! I was starting to worry that he was unable to talk, but thankfully he spoke and broke the awkward silence between us. It kinda felt like we were standing next to each other at the urinal for 7 miles. It was a little awkward. (ladies...guys don't talk when they are peeing....) The funny thing is what he said. He was all like "see that guy up there, he's dying. We're going to catch him." I was thinking to myself "I've been tailing this guy for 7 miles, I feel great and now I am going to start passing some people...." so I replied with "alright, we're going to start to pick some of these people off" I was using 'we' as an invitation to speed it up, because I am about to pick up the pace. So I picked it up, and he didn't. I felt betrayed.

Anyways, passing people who are on the verge of puking near the end of a race is the best feeling ever. From mile 7 to the finish I really picked it up and caught 7 people. It felt awesome. I ended beating 'the mute' by about 4 minutes. Secondly, my IT pain was creeping up around miles 2-4, but then it went away. The 2nd half of the race was the best feeling while running I've had in a long time. It was a good day.