Lake Norman Rotary 10k

I have been trying to shake up my legs and get some turnover back into them. At the last minute, I decided that I should head just a little ways north of my home and do the Lake Norm Rotary 10k. The race runs on many of the same roads that I use for training so I knew them all pretty well.

Looking around at the start, I saw a few familiar faces: Jaime, who is there to support a couple of athletes that she trains, Laura and Allen who are running the 10k.

The race was organized by the Lake Norman Rotary Club and was timed by Blue Ridge Revival Productions. I had never heard of the timing company but they seemed to have the chip timing covered.

With just a few comments from the race director both the 5k and 10k started at the same time. The 5k and 10k followed the same route until nearly the 4k mark where they separated. The 10k course made a small loop to an out and back section. After the out and back section, it rejoined the 5k course to the finish which was near Jason's Deli in Huntersville.

When the race director said "go", my legs thought he said "slow". They responded accordingly. In fact, it seemed that everyone was exploding off the starting line compared to me.

Then slowly, they started to come up to speed. By the first kilometer I had taken the lead. Then, I just followed the pace car and along the route. I purposely ignored my Garmin splits. That is until the last quarter mile or so. I peeked at my Garmin and saw that I could finish with something in the 35 minute range. I pushed harder and uncharacteristically, my legs responded.

Naturally it helped that the course was slightly down hill during this section.

Mostly, I was just looking to have a solid run and get myself ready for some much harder upcoming races. Getting the win in 35:07 is always nice but knowing that I ran well and had more to give definitely spurred my confidence.

A few other notes about the race, the course was marked out in kilometers rather than miles. There were no clocks along the course. The turns were fairly well marked. Based on my observations and observations from a few others, both the 5k and 10k courses were short. Well, if a runner followed the tangents, the course would be short. On the other hand, if I ran the wide side of every turn, the course would be much truer in distance. Although, the race director never said this was required nor were there any marking on the course directing the runners to particular side of the road.

This is a second year race, and it is pretty clear they are learning as they go. Give them a few more years to learn and they will have a pretty nice race.

Also I want to give a shout out to two guys I met after the race. Jose has just been running since September of last year and has already run 2 marathons. Matt who is from Winston Salem drove all the way to Charlotte for this 10k because he could find one in Winston Salem. Now, this is truly a dedicated runner. Great job yesterday guys and good luck with your future running.

 

Sharing one thought at time,

The Cool Down Runner