I raced the Manhattan Beach 10k last Saturday. A nice, friendly, community kind of race. It did end up having about 4,000 runners, so not a particularly small race. I got there about 6:45 for a 7:30 start and was able to park just around the corner from the start. There were very few people around. I wondered if I was at the wrong place. But I did see a few folks with race numbers pinned to their shirts and a few other signs that a race was going to be held. People slowly, but steadily streamed in and by ten minutes before the start of the race the streets were packed.
I met up with Brian and Annie Smith, the Assistant Pastor and his wife from my church. Most of these kind of events take place on Sundays, Brian works on Sundays, so I'm sure he jumps at the chance to participate in Saturday races. Brian is a pretty good runner, he has a personal best in a Marathon of about 3:30, Annie is on the slower side like me. We all started out together at a sub-ten-minute-mile pace for the first mile. We slowed a bit for the second mile and walked through the first water station. Shortly after that Annie lagged behind. I kept saying to Brian that if he wanted to run ahead, he could. He said he was enjoying this pace.
I have trained and usually run-walk. With the L.A. Leggers I run six minutes and walk a minute. On my own, I run a mile, walk a minute. Other than the brief fifteen second walk to take in some water at the water station I had run all the way. That is until ascending a fairly decent sized hill around mile four. I walked and told Brian to keep going if he wanted to. It took about a minute to walk up the hill and then I ran the rest of the way. Fortunately it was all down hill to the finish at this point, including a couple of uncomfortably steep down hills. Even when we got to the Strand for the last mile it was slightly downhill, even though it parallels the shore.
My final time was 1:05:40. That is a 10:35/mile pace. Certainly faster than I have run recently.
We finished near the Manhattan Beach Pier. Brian was already there, having finished about three minutes earlier. We waited for Annie who arrive about ten minutes later.
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