Trafigura Home Run 10K

This post is actually being written two weeks overdue, but through the cheater's magic of Blogger pre-dating, I'm labeling it with the actual race date to avoid any future confusion if I come looking for it....

For the second time, I came downtown to take part in the Trafigura Home Run benefiting Ronald McDonald House Houston. The course route was reconfigured this year so that the start/finish and postrace party were located on Allen Parkway in the shadow of the Interstate 45. The bulk of the mileage was still out-and-back on Allen Parkway, but at the far end, the 10K runners would visit the Montrose/Allen Parkway intersection three times in a cloverleaf  pattern. (Look up USATF course TX12195ETM for a visual,)

As entertaining as I find the art of course layout, the more pressing concern was actually weather. Early December can still mean warm and humid conditions and I had to take care not to let myself get sucked out of the start at too fast of a pace. As I was missing out on our usual training group run back home in dam country, I decided to practice run/walk intervals even if this was "only" 10K, and the results were quite positive:

Mile 1 - 9:46
Mile 2 - 10:00
Mile 3 - 10:16
Mile 4 - 11:15
Mile 5 - 11:10
Mile 6 - 11:31
Last .27 - 2:37
Elapsed 10K time - 1:06:35 per Garmin Forerunner 110, 1:06:36 per race chip timing

My memory may be a bit fuzzy, but I don't think I've clocked under 1:10 in a 10K in quite a while. So with a new tree ornament around my neck, I went home happy.