Hurricane Peach Days 12K today. Loved this race, remembered why I like to run! My friend Heather ran it with me. Small race, probably about 50 people? Lots of senior citizens who cruised and kicked my trash! This was my first year running this race, apparently the course changes every year to keep people guessing. No watches allowed on runners, we had to predict our finish time ahead of time and how close you get determines prizes at the end. It was already in the 80's when the race started at 6:15 so I was worried about getting hot, but it stayed nice & overcast and heat wasn't an issue. It was a nice flat course, but with 3 miles of dirt roads in the middle. I was worried the dirt would mess up my time, but luckily it didn't. I really liked this course. There was water at mile 2.5 (where I took 1/2 GU), at that point we entered the LDS Peach Orchards where we ran for about 3 miles through the orchards. Then back to water again at about 5.5 and less than 2 mi. back to start. The orchards kept things interesting and really broke it up nicely. I had no clue what pace I was going, figured about 9 min. miles. Just cranked up my IPOD loud enough that I wouldn't have to listen to my very labored breathing! Was pleasantly suprised when I beat my forecasted time by 20 seconds! So much of it was mental. After mile 6 I wanted to slow down, but I kept telling myself- "you have to live with this finish time forever" and "this is your race" "you got it" "your're cruising" Yes- I'm a dork! I averaged about 8:34 pace. I won $22 for being about the 7th person to most closely predict my finish time. Heather beat her prediction (she predicted 10 min. miles) by 39 seconds and won $16. I was very proud of Heather, this was a good pace for her, under 10 min. miles and esp. since she had to take about 10 days off when she was really sick! 14 people were within a minute of their predicted time- there were two 1st place winners took home a combined $160. It was a couple who finished together within 2 sec. of their predicted time. Very fun race. (Of course they're always more fun when we're happy with our time, aren't they?!) Would do it again! | 