10k October (Day Eight)

This morning I had the pleasure of running in the Wooster Brick Run. What a blast!

It was a 25k coursing throughout Wooster, OH. The race started and ended at Vertical Runner of Wooster, but it went all over the place between the start and stop. 

The start of the race was a bit bizarre for me… people were free to start whenever they wanted to. The race officially started at 7am, and it was supposed to start with people who were projecting the slowest pace. Every 15 minutes they would release a different group up until 9am. At 9am they released the group who projected a less than 8 minute per mile average pace. 

That was my group.

But I actually left around 8:50. For some reason I had quite a fear of getting lost on the run. I woke up several times last night afraid that I would get lost. So this morning I did something crazy. 

I decided to go out between groups in order to give myself the best possible chance of getting lost. In short, I chose to face my fears. 

I was literally running by myself for quite a while. I couldn’t see anyone in front of me nor anyone behind me. I was alone. But I didn’t get lost. 

I almost got hit by incoming traffic, but I didn’t get lost. 

After a while I started seeing other runners. Then I started passing other runners. 

Then I got to Flickinger Hill. It is a monster. I passed a guy on the way up and just started passing people like crazy on the way down. 

After Flickinger Hill I was a little over 7 miles into the run and I felt great. With the hill behind me, I had a new lease on life!

When I signed up for the race, I believe that I had projected a 2h 15m finish time. I’m happy to say that I crushed that projected time. I actually finished the 25k (15.5 miles) in 1:57:35! I had an average pace of 7:34 per mile.