Say No to Drugs 10K Race Report

This morning I ran the Say No to Drugs 10K at Universal Studios. I ran this race last year and had a lot of fun on a very hilly and challenging course, but this year was even more special...I got to run the race with my family. This is the first time that my son, daughter and son in law have ever run a race. My son, his girlfriend and myself did the 10K while the rest of the family and extended family walked the 5K.

The Family

We got to the race a bit early to avoid traffic and parking, so we wandered around the expo for a bit. I ran into tweep and fellow blogger Kristy and we talked for a bit. After the National Anthem, we headed down to the starting line. The race was delayed by about 10 minutes, but it gave us time to talk about strategy for the race. My training plan called for 6 miles at marathon pace, so I asked Ryan and Casey if we could run at a 10:00 per mile pace...the reaction I got was..."were gonna run that fast?" They gave in and agreed to run at that pace if I allowed them to walk up the hills. I said OK and the race started. The first 3/4 mile is downhill and the start can get a bit congested, so we took our time and got settled into our pace. We made it through 2 miles and then the big hill comes and we walked up that until we turned onto Wisteria Lane for quick out and back before climbing the rest of the hill. At the top of the hill is Whoville, the Psycho house and War of the Worlds set, which was fun to watch Ryan and Casey checking out everything including an actor dressed as Norman Bates holding his mother's corpse. (See picture below)

Lance, Norman Bates, his Mother, Nicole

We started the second loop of the 10K and it was not nearly as crowded since most of the 5K racers were off of this section of the course. I could tell that Ryan and Casey were getting a bit tired so I slowed the pace up a bit and we took an additional walk break. I did notice that one of the water stops that we came to on the second loop was already out of water and the workers had abandoned the station. Pretty sad considering there was at least 1/3-1/2 of the 10K runners behind us. We did start hitting a bit of traffic as me caught up to the back of the 5K pack. We continued the walking up the hill strategy and made it to the top. We rounded the final corner and made a push for the finish, even though it was uphill, I made Ryan and Casey run up the hill. We saw the rest of the family waiting for us as we crossed the finish line. We got our medals and met up with everyone up by the pancake breakfast. We didn't stay around for breakfast as we had some other commitments, but it sure smelled good. Unofficial time: 1:03:49

Ryan going for the big finish!

The girls in Whoville

 Everyone had a great time and they now want to make it a yearly tradition...I'm OK with that. It was fun to be able to run with my son and his girlfriend and they even talked about doing a half marathon with me in the future. One more race for me this year and that will be next weekend's Santa to the Sea Half Marathon with Penny, Kristy, and Jordan...should be a fun race.