Belleville Pond 10k Recap

This event is always a great time. I'm a huge fan of the 4th Season Trail Series as ya'll probably know by now. The series consists of smaller crowds, fun awards and raffle prizes and overall a great friendly atmosphere. We had a bunch of folks down at the race and even though some of em didn't end up running we had a great time for sure!

Pre-Race

As I said earlier I always love this race and can I say I enjoy it even more now that I live about a mile from the start? I woke up had a lovely breakfast with the wife complete with a delicious cup of Joe and had plenty of time to hang out before heading over to the start. I planned on arriving right around 9:30am to grab my number and hit the bathrooms if needed...and it was. Anyway...the warm up actually gave me a little peak into what the course looked like and I ran into Steve Brightman when jogging...which seems to happen at everyone of these races for some reason.  

Race Course

So I thought this course would be a sloppy mess with all of the wind and rain of late, but surprisingly it was not. There were very few puddles and Mike did a great job of using any felled trees as obstacles and making the race a blast! The race director Mike Galoob is known to be a bit of a torture artist with these courses (hence the drop in run club participation after the Old Mountain 5k). This course was fun and I enjoyed the varied terrain, there were fast open rail trails, there was technical bits, a trip on what seemed like a mountain bike course (anyone figure out how to maneauver over those bumps?). Overall it was a blast and after going out fairly quickly I remembered that this was a 10k, though it did end up being more like 6.7 miles! 

How the Race Unfolded

So like I just mentioned I hit the start pretty hard and quickly was in the lead. Though I could feel a few folks just behind me for the first mile or so. The first part of the race was pretty open and I thought if I could separate from the pack I may be able to get them to give up a bit when we got into the twisty stuff. I know when I lose contact with someone in those windy trails I think I'm never going to catch them! So I got into the windy bit and kept telling myself to push, get up the hills quickly, keep the tempo high and do not fall down. I enjoyed the roller coaster aspect of the course and liked how varied the terrain was there were a few really steep downhills where I had to slow down quite a bit but there were a blast to get down. I tried my best not to look back and check out where the competition was (though I did peek once or twice) I just kept my eyes on the trail in front of me and continued to grind it out until the finish around the baseball field. 

Post-Race

The post race at this event is always fun! Mike get a sweet spread of all the things I never have at my house, cookies, soda, danish, brownies and all sorts of treats. So its awesome. He also has great prizes that consist of Beer and Girl Scout Cookies along with some other running gear like hats and water bottles. I ended up going with beer but it was a tough choice for sure, I'm a huge fan of Thin Mints. 

Overall it was a blast and I highly suggest ya'll sign up for the Burlingame 5 or 10 miler on March 25th! 

Cheers,

Eric