Notes
Harvest Fest 10K - Nenahnezad Chapter House 46:07 (7:27 pace)
AKA - "The time I almost finished in last place, but managed to pass 6 people in the final 2 miles, and missed out on $75 in prize money because of a clerical error."
Run Signup listed the start time as 9:00 a.m., so I got there at 8:20 a.m. When I checked in, the ladies of Nenahnezad Chapter House informed me the race had started almost 40 minutes earlier. The first runners had not yet finished. The online time was apparently an error, and the race was actually scheduled to start at 7:30, but started late at about 7:45.
They offered to give me my entry fee back, but I told them I would just go ahead and run the course by myself for time. My warm up was the .2-mile jog to the starting line, and I lined up and headed out. The course is entirely on gravel roads and dirt roads, sometimes with difficult footing. The first mile is flat, then there's a decent hill. Then there is a huge gravel road hill climbing 200 feet to the turnaround point. I looked at my HRM while going up that hill, and it said 187, which would be the highest HR I've hit in about 10-15 years if it's accurate. Average HR for the race was 167.
It's a tough course. My splits were 7:06, 7:08, 8:25, 7:10, 7:57, 7:20. When I had finished, the race timer informed me he had my chip in his vehicle, so unfortunately they had no record of my time for placing or awards. No problem, I said. About 20 minutes later at the awards ceremony, I realized my time would have given me first place in the 51-60 division, and 1st place in each division got a check for $75. Bummer. My one and only chance at prize money. Waah!!!
Drove home with a great race story, and I cooled down around the college with another 6.6 miles for 13 miles on the day.