Hoover Hustle 10K

On April 17 2011, one day before my 35th birthday I ran in my first race. The race was the Hoover Hustle 10K/5K, located in Westerville, Ohio. It had been cold, rainy, and windy the day before this race and the morning of looked like it would be no better.  The temperature was to be in the 40's during the race which is no problem, I am good with the cold. The problem was that I would be running with a hamstring/ ITB injury and a pair of shoes with 400+ miles on them.  I was hoping to do this race in 50:00 or less, but now I would be happy to just finish. The race was to start at 9:00 so I arrived at a little after 8A.M. since there was no check in time and I didn't want to miss any action. I was just early and ended up waiting for the start time to arrive. In a way I am glad I was early, I got to see my competitors arrive, the event staff as they work, and the sun trying to make its way out for the race. The whole time I'm trying to control my nerves repeating my "it's nothing more than a morning jog." That seemed to work until it was time to line up, then the it all hit me.  As I was waiting in the corral I got a glimpse of my wife and kids on the side strip looking for me in the crowd, my wife was snapping a few pictures. Then the starting horn sounded and I had no more nerves just focus. It was time to run, and finish this race.  I started out slow and a little overwhelmed as I tried to find my way through the crowd. Having never competed like this before I had no idea as what was the right way to move past or around those in my way.  It didn't take long to get into my normal rhythm and try and take in everything of my first competitive outing.  It was windy, but at least the sun was shining making the wind feel not quite so cold. I did my best to keep an even pace that was slightly faster than normal but not so much that I would not be able to finish or risk making the injury worse.  My training and race plan seemed to be working, and I was enjoying every second of it.  As I rounded the 4mi marker I started to turn the speed up  realizing I wasn't in any danger of not finishing getting closer to the pace I wanted to do the whole race with. For the last tenth or so I managed to pull out a full sprint as some body in the cheering section yell good form 206 (my bib number) just pushed me the last little bit over the finish line. I finished at 52:59 which was good enough for me to grab 68/300. All in all I feel pretty good about my performance in my first race.  Considering I was running injured, and with different equipment missing my goal time by 2:59 is totally amazing to me. It feels great to have this under my belt, bring on the rest.