Mooresville Pumpkin 8k Run Race Recap 10.30.2010
Saturday morning, there were numerous races in and around the Charlotte area. Everything was from 5k to 8k to 10k races.
After kicking around several ideas, I settled on the Mooresville, NC Pumpkin 8k Run.
I have done this race a few times in the past but had not been able to run it in the last couple of years.
Couple that with the with the fact that I hadn't run much around Charlotte this year and the fact that I was looking for something along the 5 mile distance made this the perfect choice.
The race didn't start until 9 AM and when I drove by the race headquarters at 7:30, I thought maybe I had the wrong location. There parking lot was totally empty.
But rest assured, many people just taking a little extra sleep before heading out to burn some calories on this Saturday morning.
Being a little early also gave me another perk; I took the opportunity to drive over the course – for nothing more than to just refresh my memory to all of the turns.
Race Day registration was $25 which isn't too bad considering how race entry fees go and my bib number was 9. Made me wonder how many people were signed up. However, most of the numbers were used for the preregistered runners.
To test out the legs, I knocked out an easy 3 mile warm up and followed it with some nice strides. The sun was just making it over the horizon at race time which left us with a slightly chilly start.
We received a few last minute prerace instructions before being sent on our way.
There was one woman that took off sprinting and it would take a quarter mile before I would catch her.
My goal for this race was to focus on a tempo type of effort and try to run 5:50 miles.
The first few miles were under goal pace but then they were the fast miles. Miles 3 and 4 had a lot more climbing to which my pace slowed to 5:55 and 6:06. I wasn't too worried by the slower miles because I was continuing to put out the same effort that I had used for the 1st 2 miles.
Once past mile 4 I pushed smoothly toward the finish line – closing the last mile in a relaxed 5:42.
Running solo well other than the Police SUV was tough even when running a race. But the effort based run was what I needed most and I thought it went very well.
The Brooks shoes for winning were also an added Bonus. Actually, I won Mizuno shoes, but another guy won Brooks shoes and asked if I was interested in swapping awards.
Definitely, this wasn't a problem for me. I like Brooks.
Plenty of sports drinks and food were available after the race. In addition they had a lot of really nice door prizes.
It is a surprise that more people don't come out for this particular race, but then I guess it is hard to compete against a race that allows you to run on an airport runway.
Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner
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