This past weekend I ran the local Super Bowl 10k for the 4th year in a row. This was my first race I ran after moving to Santa Cruz so it has a special place in my heart and I always look forward to it. This year was my first time running it as a member of Santa Cruz Endurance. After my recent training (see my last post), I was excited to see how I would do at the 10k distance. Well, I won’t leave you waiting… I did great and earned a new PR, 2 1/2 minutes off my previous best 10k time! Woot woot!

Fellow SCE member and SFM Ambassador, Elise, and I headed out together. We picked up our bibs and warmed up with a nice slow mile. This helped us also combat the cold weather! Brr. After that we ran into our friend Kelsey who also ran the race. We saw a few other SCE members (check out the recap here) and some other running friends and then it was go time!

Ready to go!

I was ready for this race and started with a look of determination (Seriously look at my face in this photo!)
Also, I was rocking Kevin’s 49ers beanie to send some good vibes to the team. Bummer they didn’t win.

who can complain with these running views??

Anyway, I started out a little too fast (6:38 first mile, whoops!). But I felt good and just couldn’t get myself to slow down. After that I settled into an average 7:14 pace (with my longest mile at 7:30). I felt pretty good the whole race, until about half into my 5th mile. I felt tired and my legs felt heavy.. then I looked at my Garmin and saw I was running a 6:30 pace, whoops!

Sprinting to the finish

I rounded the last corner and knew I was going to finish strong. The course seemed a little long by my watch (6.28 instead of 6.2) so at the 10k time (again by my watch) I was at 44:47. My finish time by my watch was 45:25 and official finish time was 45:28. This placed me as the 4th overall woman finisher and 2nd in my age group (finished 37th overall). I didn’t realize the next girl behind me was so close, she finished at 45:29. Wow I’m glad I didn’t hold back! Elise was not far behind, with a finishing time of 46:06.

Walking up to get my medal!

Getting a medal is the best!

2nd in my age group!

This was a great race for our team! All of the runners took one of the top 5 spots in their age group, and two of our guys took 1st and 3rd overall!

SCE runners represent!

Have you raced yet in 2013? How’d it go?