2011 Cap 10K

Yeah, I'm a little late, but I have another race in the morning, so I thought I'd better write my race report from the Cap 10K race a few weeks ago. I've done the Cap 10K race for several years now. It's the larget 10K race in Texas and a lot of people dress up for it, so it's lots of fun.

This year, race morning turned out to be a beautiful morning for a race. Temps were in the high 50s and it was a little overcast. It was a little cold standing around before the race, but I knew it would be perfect once we started running. As always, I had gotten to the race start early and hit the port-a-potties. Then I stretched for a bit because I was still having knee issues. After stretching for a while, I hit the port-a-potties again and then I headed for my coral.

Standing in the coral waiting for the race start, I started talking to an older gentleman. Turns out he was from Bryan (in fact he use to be the mayor) and he was an Aggie graduate. We talked some more and he told me he was 77 years old and didn't take any medication. He runs to stay healthy. He also competes in the senior games. I want to be like him when I grow up!

The gun went off and I wished him good luck. It took a few minutes to get to the start, but when I did I took off and tried to settle into my pace. I knew I wouldn't get a PR in this race, but I hoped to come in under an hour. I wasn't going to push the pace with the knee issue.

I felt pretty good running up Congress. As I approached the first mile marker and hit the split button, I saw an 8:53 pace. I knew that I wouldn't be able to maintain that, so I slowed down a little bit. Besides, I had forgotten how hilly the first few miles could be. Note to self: get back to hill training.

Mile 2: 9:12. Ok, that's a little better and now with the uphills are a few downhills. Mile 3: 9:16. Keeping a fairly good pace here. If I can get through the hills, I should be ok. The spectator support at this race is good and it kept me focused on moving forward. Finally I was through the majority of the hills. Mile 4: 9:03. Just 2 more to go. Mile 5: 9:09. I'm hanging in there and confident I can finish with a decent time. Mile 6: 9:10. I thought about pushing it the last .2 miles, but knew at this point I would not PR, so I decided it wasn't worth it. I cruised on in to a 56:36 finish time. The last .2 took me 1:50.

After I finished, I grabbed some water and stretched my legs out. I know I need to get better at stretching and make it more of a focus after all my runs and races. I started getting cold as I was sweaty from the run and the temps were still in the high 50s.

Another great race was in the books. I found out later that many of my friends had done the race as well and I didn't see anyone down there. I guess with 23,000 runners, that's to be expected.