Drove Arya and Kyle down to Ada for the running of oldest race in Oklahoma and to my surprise hardest 10k course I've ran. Several of my running buddies told me about the hill on it and this year instead of doing the 5k I opted to go with the 10 and find out about the hill.
We met up with Aaron and Amanda who had actually gave me a free entry to the race and all of us warmed up together. Arya was going for the record set by Scott Smith last year (31:31) and Amanda was gunning for Ashley Millers CR of (37:5X).
I was not really gunning for any specific time just a good honest effort. I learned long ago to throw all fast time PR performances out the window when summer time in OK hits. PR's coming in the spring or fall unless you go out of state.
We took off right at 7 a. m. and had a nice cloudy day, little wind and a lot of humidity. The first couple of miles was fairly fast with some gradual downhill a few windy turns.
Mile 1 Arya and another college age kid were out front and Aaron and Cale were 10 sec back and I was about 5 sec behind them.
Mile 2.5 we turned E into a sharp up hill I was kinda shocked because several folks told me the monster hill was at mile 4. about mile 3 we turned back north and a dude with a water hose was at a water stop spraying a mist that I gladly ran through and grabbed a quick drink and that water was ICE cold. I poured a bit on the back of my neck and it took my breath away.
At mile 3.5 things were pretty spread out and I could see Ayra had made a nice move on massive hill set before me and broke away from the College kid. Aaron was slightly ahead of Cale and their gap on me continued to grow.
My buddy Jazz that ran the race last year told me this was the only hill he ever walked on. I have never walked up a hill and wasn't planning on walking on this day either. I felt at times that my pace was at a walk but i continued to focus on getting up. The steepest point was at 10% incline on my strava.
basically from 2.5-4.8 is a hill after that it was roll down the windows and get to the finish line.
Ayra was just shy of the record. - :29 sec and Amanda shattered the 10k and brought home $1000 bucks.
Kyle won the 5k but was well shy of a record.
We all regrouped and did a few cool down miles and met up for some breakfast a the Prairie kitchen in Ada. Had a great start to my 4th with some good running friends.
Aaron, Amanda, Myself, Arya, and Kyle
| 
