Real Florida 10K at Wekiwa Springs

This morning was the Real Florida 5K & 10K at Wekiwa Springs State Park.  This is a fund raiser for the CSO I belong to, Wekiva Wilderness Trust, so I got up early to help out before the race.  I was very surprised when I checked the temps; 68' F and quite humid due to a few passing showers.  This is February in Florida?  Over 250 pre-registered and we expected about 100 walk-ups.

I did an easy warm up 30 minutes before the race because I wanted to best my time of 58:00 in 2012.  The 10K starts at 8:30 with the 5K at 8:45.  There were 103 starters when the horn blew and I took off like a shot and was booking 7:30 minute miles during the 2 kilometers.  Dry weather had made the trails quite sandy in places and it's alway a challenge to climb a sand hill.  I felt strong throughout the race and did a final surge at the finish.  I finished 21st overall and 2nd out of 5 in my age group by 4.5 seconds to a guy from Illinois with a time of 56:32, a personal best by 1:28.  That gave me an overall mile split of 8:56.  I would have pushed harder if I'd known the win was that close.  As usual, the Garmin GPS I carried showed the course was 6.33, a little long.  Next weekend is the Long Play 33 1/3 mile Run so I feel I'm primed for that.