A little secret, last year was my very time doing this super fun local race and I knew I wanted to come back and either race it or pace it. Last year I did the race with my great running friend Robin and paced her for a while and I knew then I wanted to come back. The race course has some rolling hills at the very beginning and at the very end, but a BIG downhill portion that is FUN. It is also a point to point race meaning you park at the finish and area bused out to the start.
Packet pick up was quick and easy with packet pick up beginning on Wednesday through race day morning. We got a nice Tech T (men's size so WAY to big for me) and a pair of race day personalized socks. Parking was super easy and the finish line had lots of activities to do post race or while waiting for your runner to finish. I wish Tony and Andrew could have been there as Andrew would have loved the bouncy houses but Tony had to work :(
Let's start morning of. We knew bad weather was a possibility as the start, and right on cue, I woke up at 4:30 am to the sound of rain. I don't mind rain at all, but there was some lightening accompanying said rain, which made the race organizers a little worried. They decided to have everyone load the buses and instead of buses heading out periodically to dump us to the tent at the start, all the buses held and then unloaded all at the same time once the weather let up. Luckily for all of us, the lightening left the area quickly, and we were able to head out pretty close to the original start time. I kind of liked that strategy, because then we weren't just standing around waiting in the weather (the tent is big but not big enough for all of us). I put my poncho on over my pacer shirt and stood out in the sprinkles till we were told to line up. I was pacing the 2:35 group this time, and was excited to see how this would play out. My fellow 2:35 pacer had never paced before, so she requested I be lead pacer, something I had never done before. I was a little nervous, but since I classify this race as fast, I figured this one would be a good one to sink my teeth into as lead.
As we began, I totally forgot to turn on my watch and had to start it before it found satellites. Lucky for me, it found them within seconds and started recording. The race starts with some rolling hills before you get a nice big down hill at mile 6. I had talked to my group and let them know our strategy of taking it easy at first, walking through the aid stations, and banking a little bit of time, so we could end up walking the final two big hills towards the end. I very quickly had a few ladies right at my heels and two ladies right up with me. Some left us and some stayed behind and got swept up into other pace groups, but overall we had a good group again till about mile 10. The rain stopped pretty quickly and i had to shed my poncho to stay cool. I decided that my strategy from last weekend of pouring water on my buff and possibly my head was a good idea, since the humidity was pretty high and I could tell my body was struggling to deal with it even our slower pace. I had also brought my hand held again, since it holds my two waffles perfectly, and that way I can have Nuun and water as needed. One of the ladies that hung with me till pretty much the end talked the entire time and I really enjoyed her company, BUT we would get to chatting and next thing I would know, we would be going in the high 10s. She lives near to me and we paced perfectly, so I think we need to do some training runs together! She is fighting some issues in her hip and feet as well, so we had lots in common, plus she had 2 little boys, so she understood how much fun it is having kiddos in school and all of their activities. My watch really was all over the place. At times it would be in the 13s and other times in the 11s very quickly, so not sure why it was so crazy. Cloud cover maybe?
My overall pace was suppose to be closer to to 11:49, so I was about 9 seconds too fast. I did have to stop around mile 6 for a quick porta potty break and had to sprint to catch up so my mile 6 and 7 were a little bit fast, plus this was the big downhill that i didn't do a great job of holding back enough. I wanted to bank a little bit of time for the later walking, and I think I just banked too much time. You can see where we did walk around 11 and 12 for the two big hills on campus, but I ended up finishing at 2:33:14 instead of my time of 2:35. I am trying to think about what I could adjust next time. I think I should have walked prior to the aid stations a little more coming into them and a little more out. I should have reigned it in a bit more on the downs. Now that I have one race under my belt as a lead pacer, I have lots of ideas on making my next race better. I enjoyed having a fairly large group for most of the race and I was super excited to get to cheer a few in at the end to meet and exceed their goals! It is SUCH a great feeling to be a pacer!
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| Melly Mel and Jim at the finish |
I love this race for so many reasons. It's local for me and point to point. It goes by all the fun sights in Manhattan so if you aren't from here, you get to see a lot of Manhattan and what has changed over the years. Why the crowd support out on I77 was not as good as it has been in the past thanks to the weather, it was amazing in town. Kudos to all volunteers that showed up with not so great weather happening. I LOVE the medal with the power cat AND the fight song! Even though my experience at KSU as a student was less than ideal, I am still a wildcat through and through and I love anything Powercat related. Can't wait to pace this race again next year! Thanks to our local running store Manhattan Running Company for putting on this awesome local race. Maybe some day try for a PR here??? If the weather is right, it's the course to do so! GO CATS!
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