Race Report: Bimbo Global Energy 10k

Initially, I thought this race was just a "fun run" that was put on by the people at Run Racing (who also put on the Long Beach Marathon).  So, even though my legs were pretty much dead (and I ran 0 miles since completing Ironman Lake Tahoe the weekend before), I decided to hop aboard and do the race.

Well, I was mistaken.  This race is actually HUGE.  Aside from the ~3000 people or so that were in Long Beach to do the race - they had several other races in various cities across the globe doing the race as well.  So it was actually a pretty big time event.

At the start line of the event.  You can see the flags in the background from the other places that the race was being run.

Me, being the hard headed dumbass that I am, decided I would race the race instead of just running the race - which turned out not to be the best of moves.  My legs, regardless of how much I wanted to say they were recovered, were still tired from Ironman Lake Tahoe the week before.  On top of that, I had done very little speed training with my running and no running in the week before the race.  So I had that going against me from the get go.  However, I've run a trillion 10ks before and knew what I could and could not handle (or so I thought).

So, when the gun sounded, off I went in the lead and was running a sub six minute per mile pace.  At first, it felt great!  I was in the lead, I was cruising along, and going fast!

Taking off in the lead of the race.

It felt good at first - holding a pretty fast pace (for me).

At just before mile 2, that all kind of fell apart.  I wasn't in any shape to hold that kind of pace through a 10k, and I soon saw my 5:40 turn into a 6:00.  And then a 6:10.  And then 6:15, and so on and so forth until about the mile 5 marker where it finally cracked 7:00 until the finish.

I ended up outside of the top 10, but first in my age group with a 40:17.  

The medal from the race is super awesome - one of the better medals I've seen for a 10k.

By the time I crossed the finish line, I felt like I had run a marathon.  My legs were sore, screaming at me, and just plain tired.  It was an obvious indication that - athletic and endurance wise - doing this race was probably not the brightest of ideas.  I guess I'm just getting old.  

The race itself was run fantastically.  The run was scenic (although I train here often, so I've done this exact run hundred times before) and very flat - so it was perfect to put up a fast time.  

The only gripe I have with the run is that there were about 1100 people who did the 10k (per the results) and about twice that who did the 3k fun run/walk.  What this caused was a massive amount of congestion where the 3k turnaround was (you had ~2000 people turning around right at mile 5.5 or so of the 10k course) - so kicking hard to the finish line just wasn't possible.  

In any case, it was a fun little morning and definitely a race I'd do again!