Surf n Santa 10 Miler

I know, I know it took me forever to get this report out, but this pesky job of mine is really getting in the way of my blog posting lately, haha. Not sure what to do about that.

Anyway, the inaugural Surf n Santa 10 Miler was a huge success. It was a good day to run, a good course and very cool (or warm) finish and post race party inside the convention center. Over 4000 participants showed up and I think this race is just getting started. Next year will be bigger and better for sure.

I really didn't know what to expect for this one. After a bike crash in September, several weeks of no running at all and several weeks rehabbing and building back to a reasonable amount of volume, I was just happy to have a chance to put a number on and run hard. My goal was to finish in under an hour, which would have been no problem a few months ago, but given the injuries and missed training time of late, it was probably a bit ambitious. But sometimes ambition is good, so off I went.

It was a competitive field which made it fun. There were lots of fast guys there which is always inspiring and I needed it, because the effort hurt early and it hurt a lot. I had to fight pretty hard to hold pace the last 4 miles or so, but I ended up crossing the line in 59:53, good enough for 10th place overall. At this point in the year I will certainly take it. Sorry I don't have any race photos, but Steph was working pretty hard during this one and she had better things to do than take pictures of me. However, I do have this one from the post race party courtesy of my friend Kate Derner.

 J&A let me wear number 1 again. One of these days

I will actually earn it, haha.

My friend Jerry likes to say, "Your best races aren't always your fastest races." In this case he was absolutely right. Was it the fastest 10 miles I have ever run? Nope. I made it to the 10 mile mark of the Rock n Roll Half Marathon almost 30 seconds faster than I made it to the finish line of Surf n Santa. But even though it wasn't my FASTEST 10 miles, it may have been my BEST 10 miles yet. I am very pleased with it.

A lot of people were treating this race as their last big run of 2010. But due to the way things have unfolded for me this fall, I was looking at this race as my first big run of 2011. That said, 2011 is looking very promising.

Thanks for stopping by.