Real Florida 5K & 10K @ Wekiwa Springs State Park

This morning was the 25th running of the Real Florida 5K & 10K at Wekiwa Springs State Park.  This year featured the first 10K in the event.  As a member of the Wekiva Wilderness Trust, I volunteered to help at registration before the race, so I biked in at 6:30 AM.  We had a record crowd with 340 signed up; finishers totaled 105 for the 10K and 192 for the 5K.  I did the 10K, my first race since my ITB problem at the Disney Marathon seven weeks ago.  The weather was perfect, 60s, light breeze, with a bit of overcast and packed trails due to the rain earlier in the week.

We took off quickly at the gun and I hung back, doing a 10:30 mile split to warm up.  I was surprised how quickly the pack strung out and by mile 2, everyone was fairly scattered.  The course started out flat and got hillier on the return, alternating between fire roads and single track.  I really felt great and picked up the pace, dropping to 8:39 for a long time.  The last 1/2 mile got a bit tougher but I finished strong with a final time of 58:00 with 9:15 mile splits average.  This was good enough for fourth out of seven in my age group.  No injury problems at all which was partly due to my stretching and cycling warm up before the start.  I did run into Laura, my therapist from Florida Hospital, and her husband Jim.