Hot Chocolate 15k

The Hot Chocolate race is a fun race with some good giveaways.  I'd done this twice before and I like the course (mostly).  My wife decided to walk it with a friend and I have been getting some consistent running so I thought I would actually try to race it as opposed to just running it.  The main difference for me is that when I race, I look at my recent running (ideally racing results) and decide a target pace.

Based on my last 10k on Thanksgiving (8:51 mpm according to MapMyFitness), I decided to shoot for a 9:00 minute per mile pace.  I felt this was a bit aggressive but based on my earlier results (I was shooting for at least 9:30 mpm on Thanksgiving), I thought I had a chance.

I said Good Bye and Good Luck to Christine and her friend and they went to stand in line for the port-a-john.  I decided to do a little warming up and did a little slow running and then several pickups speeding up to a sprint before backing off.  Once I was feeling loosened up, I headed over to my corral and got my app and watch ready to start and started looking to see if there was a 9:00 mpm pacer.

I found him and chatted a bit and then we were off.  The pacer said the plan was even splits and he kept his end of the deal, with the furthest off according to my app being 8 seconds over or under depending on water stations, but averaging right at 9.  I managed to stay with him till after the 7 mile marker and my last 2 miles averaged 9:44.

Overall, I'm happy with this, especially since I hadn't done very many long runs leading up to this.  It was a good course with my only complaints being a couple of narrow areas and several u-turns that break momentum.  I picked up a couple new pairs of running shoes at the expo for an added bonus.  I also like the jackets they give instead of t-shirts.  Definitely enjoy this race and will do it again in the future.

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