Winter Classic 10K

Well the snow and ice was just about all melted by Friday afternoon up in the Mohawk Park area, so we went ahead and signed up for the Tulsa Running Club Winter Classic 10K race. The weather was chilly when we arrived, but had warmed to 43 degrees by race time with a light southerly wind and sunny skies, so we opted for just shorts and a t-shirt. As usual, a very high percentage of the folks we saw lined up at the start line were way overdressed, especially considering that some of them were running the 20K or 30K events.

This was Cameron's first race in 8 weeks, which is the longest he's gone between races in quite some time, and just before the start he appeared to come up with a sudden case of stage fright. He said that he "wanted to run with daddy" instead of running off and leaving me behind as he normally does. Now I am not in good enough shape at the moment to run a good 10K, so I didn't think this was such a good idea, but before I could talk him out of it, the gun sounded and we were off.

Suddenly my race strategy was not one I would highly recommend...it was to run much faster than I was capable of sustaining for a 10K for as long as I could before I had to drop back, and at that point I was hoping Cameron would decide to just go ahead and run off and leave me behind. We maintained about a 9-minute/mile pace until the 3K mark, which is when I absolutely could not sustain that pace anymore if I wanted to finish the 10K. So I told Cameron it was time to run off and leave me because I was not in shape to run a 10K at this pace. It didn't work however, so we spent the next 1/3 mile or so discussing why he did not want to run this race on his own as we slowed our pace considerably. I finally convinced him to go on, so shortly before the 4K marker, he took off and left me behind.

Cameron finished the 10K with a chip time of 56:24, which was good enough for 2nd out of 3 in his age group (12/under), 44th out of 90 males, and 54th out of 191 overall. As for me, the last 5K was a major struggle due to the fast start, and I limped home in 1:03:44, which was actually better than I thought I was capable of at this point in time. It got a little warm the last half of the race, making me very glad that we chose to run in the clothes we did.

After the race, Cameron finally told me that the reason he wanted to run with me was because he was afraid of getting lost. Of course, there was no chance of him getting lost on that course at Mohawk Park with around 335 runners among the three events running the same course. His time of 56:24 was only 8 seconds slower than his 10K race PR, and 39 seconds off his overall 10K PR. Needless to say, he'd have had a PR for sure if he had run on his own from the start. I do know that his second 5K today was somewhere between 60-90 seconds faster than his first 5K. He also described the race as "very easy." I wish I could say the same about my race.

We jogged a 1/2 mile warmup before the race, so Cameron's total distance run was 6.7 miles, bringing his monthly and yearly total to 37.2 miles.