2013 Folsom Firecracker 10K

The Folsom Firecracker 10K took place on the last day of a heat wave in the Sacramento area, and my performance in the event suffered as a result. There were five water stops along the run, and I used the stops more for pouring the water over my head to stay cool rather than to re-hydrate.

I didn't run for a week leading up to the event to rest up and to avoid the heat. I wasn't quite sure what pace to target for the run. Last year I finished the same race in just under an hour (59:56). I wanted to beat that, and thought that targeting 55 minutes would be about right (which would be a target of ~8:51/mile). That'd be about midway between my time last year and my PR of 50:49.

As it turned out, the heat was too much for me, and I withered away pretty quickly. Only my first mile was better than the pace I wanted, and I lost about a half minute per mile for each mile after that. Here's a look at my mile breakdowns:

• Mile 1 - 08:27
• Mile 2 - 09:04
• Mile 3 - 09:31
• Mile 4 - 10:02
• Mile 5 - 10:33
• Mile 6 - 10:57
• Mile + - 02:52 (10:35/mile pace)

Adding it up, I came closer to setting a new PW (Personal Worst) for the 10K rather than meeting my goal:

It's hard to reconcile this performance with my last 10K where I set my PR since I was over 10 minutes slower this go round, but looking at the stats for the runs, a couple things are clear: my PR was set when the temperature was 57º whereas this run was 91º (with 34% humidity) and this course was hillier than the PR course. I've heard that 60º is the optimal running temperature and that there would be performance degradation for every 5º above that.

One really nice thing that was done for this race that I hadn't seen before was the ability to create (and print) a finisher certificate for the race. Here's mine:

Looks good and it's a nice touch (meets what I'm doing with my badges). Hopefully more of these will be available in the future.

The race ended up being more focused on "survival" and finishing than dominating. I'm happy to say that I ran the whole way since I did have thoughts of stopping and walking throughout. I'd like to write that all off to heat, but I think I could have been better prepared to run in the conditions.