Had this race on my schedule because it’s part of a winter racing series with the club and because I needed to get some miles in. The plan was to take it pretty easy, but not quite as slow as training pace. I don’t know how hard I actually pushed myself (harder than I had planned), but I’m pretty happy with what I pulled off.<br/><br/>The race has been around for years. The idea is you pay an entry fee or bring some home-baked bread. Since I technically get in to the race free I didn’t have to do anything, but we had a bag of banana bread mix sitting around so I spent some time the night before making it… No idea how it turned out as the baked breads were given out as awards.<br/><br/>The race itself… Started at Glen Echo Park… Really cool place, I need to schedule a trip up there with some of the younger ladies in my life… They’d like it. Down through some residential areas, on to the C&amp;O Canal for a few miles, and finally back up to the park for the finish. My goal was 42ish in this, my first 10k ever, which would be 6:45 pace. At mile five I was looking at 6:40 overall pace. Great! I could cruise this last mile and meet that “goal,” which I had set prerace… Much harder than I had planned to go the night before, but that’s how trying to just get some miles in during a race goes… What I hadn’t thought about is at #5 we were still down in the canal. We had descended quite a bit to get down there… We’d have to ascend. A slow ascent would have been alright, but the entirety of this ascent was covered in probably a tenth of a mile or so. Basically a staircase that was straight up. I contemplated walking… When I reached the top, I was staring 6:47 overall in the face. Absolutely exhausted from the climb, it was going to be tough to pull that lost time back out. I gave it nearly my best effort to finish in 42:05 (6:45 high pace).<br/><br/>I was 11th overall, 2nd in my age group, and would have been 2nd if I were a female. My friend Toni passed me around mile 4 to take the win for the ladies… She said she was taking it easy since she had done a long run the day before, but I think she’s like the rest of us… We’re gonna run hard if we’re out there.<br/><br/>My prize? Choice of bread! I didn’t look long as a foil-wrapped plate seemingly jumped out at me with a label “Brownie Bread.” I live with two girls… “Brownie Bread” would be a nice treat for them. I get home, uncover it, and it’s just a giant pile of brownies. I had been had! Someone is pretty funny, and the ladies are quite pleased with their giant supply of brownies.<br/><br/>Oh, it should be noted that since I was not planning on running hard, I dined on a giant Reuben, fries, Buffalo Wing dip cheese sauce something or other, and both 60-minute (6% ABV) and 90-minute (9% ABV) IPAs at <a href=”http://www.dogfishalehouse.com/index.php/dogfish-head-alehouse-falls-church.html” target=”_blank”>Dogfish Head Alehouse</a> the night before. Awesome, awesome place, but probably the worst meal you could possibly eat the night before a race.<br/><br/>Ohoh, another great thing about this race was it was held at 10:30AM. That is one of the most brilliant logistical decisions I’ve ever seen at a race. It’s the winter… The sun doesn’t come up until like 7. By 8 (typical race start), it hasn’t had any time to heat the air. By 10:30, it has… It was a warmer than average day, but even on a cold one, the difference a few degrees would make would be huge. Bravo to the race directors! Definitely a race I’ll be doing again next year.<br/><br/><a href=”http://www.dcroadrunners.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=396:dcrrc-bread-run-10k-&amp;catid=11:race-results&amp;Itemid=34″ target=”_blank”>Results</a><br/><a href=”http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=7288172″ target=”_blank”>My GPS</a><br/>