Bank of Fincastle 10k

I’m gonna start out by saying I definitely exceeded my expectations for this race and it was a really good day top to bottom. Having run the course many, many times and understanding its difficulty, and also keeping in mind that I’d only put in around 4 weeks of good training (with no real workouts), I figured going in that I should be happy with anything around 37 min. Well, I bettered that by almost 90 seconds and ran about 2:30 faster than an out-of-shape me ran at this race last year, crossing the line in 35:38 to take the win.

During the warm-up I felt very sluggish and my legs were just plain heavy. I told Andrew that if I didn’t feel better once the race started that I was gonna be lucky to run 6:30’s. However, once I laced up the flats and did a couple strides, for whatever reason I just felt ready to go. The race starts with a long, three quarters of a mile climb, and from the point where the gun fired to the top of the hill I just picked people off steadily to the point where it was me and Andrew running 1-2 at the top of the hill (“just like a training run,” I commented). From there, I just felt strong the entire way. There were points where I felt like I was working fairly hard, but for the most part I felt very much under control start to finish. I actually ran the last three miles 28 sec faster than the first three, and my fastest mile of the day was mile 6 in 5:36. There was definitely more in the tank!

Anyway, while this race is certainly no big deal in the grand scheme of things, it’s always meant a lot to me simply because it’s my hometown race and a big event for the community. They really focus on the young kids and getting them involved and I think that’s great. It’s always fun and sort of kicks off fall for me, and winning here is always extra nice. I’d also like to congratulate friend and training partner, Andrew Parkins, on grabbing the overall win in the 5k and leading his team to victory in the team competition. Dude picked up lots of hardware!

Below are a few pics. The first is the elevation profile in case anyone thinks I'm exaggerating the hills. According to the Garmin, the course had 939' of total ascent and 872' of total descent (the race starts farther down the hill than it finishes, which is a nice touch - ha, ha). I said that one of these days when I get old I'm gonna take over as race director and redo the race brochure to describe the course as "gently rolling" - ha, ha. The second pic is me coming to the line, and the third is me and Andrew after the race with our trophies. Andrew had two quotes of the day at this race. I won't mention the first and probably shouldn't this one, but both were really funny. The one I'm referring to here went something like this: Bridget (Andrew's wife) - "That thing is huge!" (referring to the trophy). Andrew (in response) - "That is DEFINITELY what she said!"