On May 19th I ran the 10K race at the Peach City
RunFest http://www.peachcityhalf.com/ in
beautiful Penticton. We took off from beside the beach in Skaha Lake Park at 8
AM. The race director had announced that the winner of the race for the last
2 years, Doug Wickware, was running it again. He wasn't standing at his usual
spot near the front at the start line, however, and looked sheepish as he waved
to the crowd. Later on we found out that he'd dropped out of the race, so he was
probably running injured.
We ran along Main Street before turning off
and racing along a winding road. At about the 6K mark we hit a pretty good hill
that slowed me down considerably, but I could see the guy in front of me was
struggling too. We reached the top and went around a couple more corners, and
finally there were the marshals guiding us around a turnaround, only 3 more Ks
to go!
About halfway there I hit the last hill, which was
quite steep and I was happy to finally crest it. It still took awhile to get
back up to speed, but soon up ahead the turn into the park loomed, with cheering
volunteers and spectators waiting there to spur us on. I ran the final 400
meters as quickly as I could, but my time this year was quite a bit slower than
in the past. Even though I finished 7 of 66
overall, I ended up 3 of 6 in my age group, and it took me 44:18 to do it. http://www.peachcityrunners.com/marathon/pc10k2013.htm I
still managed to medal anyway, so all was good. I'm no longer the course record
holder for my age group though, but hopefully I can rectify that next
year.
To eat they had cut up eclairs and chocolate chip
cookies, plus bananas, watermelon, and oranges.
The volunteers also cooked us a
great pancake breakfast, and they had coffee and chocolate milk to rehydrate us
and recharge our energy levels.
I looked at the list of winners of the draw
prizes, and my name was right at the top, so I went over to the prize table.
They said that I'd won the big prize, which is a waterproof container made by an
Edmonton company called UK, worth $70!
I got some pics of happy finishers, including the
half marathon winner, a guy about my age named Michael Kascak.
Steve
King did his always stellar job as race announcer, which adds a touch of class
to any event where we're lucky enough to have him. They did the 10K awards, and
the presenter told us that they'd sent a fellow to get the third place medals
that had been left behind, and he'd be there shortly. While I was waiting for
him three woman were looking at the posted results, and I was standing there as
one of them said she'd finished 7th in her age group. I realized she'd been
reading them wrong, as she was actually second, and her friend was third. I
explained this to them, and said "You medaled!", and they were really happy
about this news. The guy showed up with our third place medals, and it was time
to head back to Vancouver. This is a favourite race of mine, and I'm planning be
back to have more fun and try to post a new record next year!
My next races were the 800 and 1500 meters at the
Q's Victoria Run Series track meet on May 25th.
