Crim 10 mile race report

Normally this is a cross train day on the bike - did 10 miles today - Did the Crim 10 mile race, one of the best races in Michigan - in my opinion!

It was picture perfect outside today for a run.  In the low 60's to start, sunny, a little humid but not too bad.  My goal was to hit 1:20:00.  When I got my race bib, I thought, this is going to be a great race - why?  Because my number was 5600 even!  I've never had an even number like that.  My last ten mile race, the Solstice Run, I ran in 1:20:15 so I figured hoped I could get back 15 seconds.

I left my home at 4:20am today.  Why?  Because they tend to close the streets fairly early since the wheelchair race starts at 7:30am and I'm about 45 min-1 hour away from Flint.  I ended up sitting in the parking lot for about 45 minutes and made my way to the starting line.  I'd rather be there early than be rushing.  It was crowded.  They said there was going to be over 10,000 10 mile runners and that does not include the crowd, 5k or 8k runners.  Over 45,000 people total in Downtown Flint today for the race per the announcer.

We started right after the 30 year runners.  These are the runners that have run the Crim for at least 30 years or more.  Wow - quite an accomplishment!  I think I passed most of them and was sure to give them a little "good job" as I continued on.  I also passed a guy that had on a shirt that said "82 so I'm slowing down a little"  82 running 10 miles - I hope I can be that lucky!

This race has great crowd support throughout the entire race.  I don't think a minute or two went by without hearing music, a band, cheering, or screaming volunteers at the water stops, beer being handed out(no I didn't take any), iced coffee.  Here's my splits for the race:

Overall I was very happy with the pace I was able to keep especially since this is a challenging course(hilly).  Here the elevation:

If you look at the chart above, at mile 5 we hit the dreaded "Bradley Hills".  I personally don't think they are too bad but they have quite the reputation.  I'm sure if it was much warmer out, I would think differently.

Garmin time was 1:20:04.  It makes it look like I didn't meet my goal - forgot to turn off the Garmin at the end of the race - oops - I was spent and not thinking.  My actual race time was 1:18:18(7:50 pace).  Almost 2 minutes faster than the 10 mile I did in June.  I could not believe it!  A new PR for the 10 mile! And I didn't even feel like throwing up at the end.  Haha!  Last year I did the Crim race in 1:21:22.  I guess my decision to run another marathon has paid off - had I not, I probably would not be quite as fast considering I would not be running as many miles.

As I talked about in a previous post, one of the things you could do is sign up to have your results e-mailed to you.  I took advantage of this and had it e-mailed, Facebook and Twitter.  How fun to get in my car and know the results that quickly.  Here's what it looked like:

I'll be interested to see if this program matches the actually timing company's time.  My 5 mile split was 38:40 for a 7:44 pace - incredibly fast for me.  Of course, the hills slowed me down a little since my finish ended at a 7:50 pace but I'm still very, very happy with the results.  I never thought that I would be able to keep that kind of pace for so long.  Of course, it would be nice to see a negative split here but I'm working on that.

Here's the Garmin pace chart - I love seeing the consistency on this chart:

The other thing that was great this year vs. last years race is that I did not get slowed down too much in the beginning of the race.  It seemed that the people running were overall correctly positioned in the race.  It's a pet peeve of mine when you have to pass so many people in the beginning.

The finish is also awesome each year.  You get ice cold towels for your head, your medal(the volunteers for the entire race were awesome), bananas, apples, gatorade, pizza, pop.  A really nice spread.

Here's the medal we received at the finish:

And of course, the smile on my face my daughter took at home.  No pictures for this race since I went to the race alone and I did not feel like carrying the camera the entire race.

Have a great day and......Keep Running!!!!!!!