The Chile Pepper Festival: Feelin' HOT HOT HOT!

This weekend BJ and I were up in Fayetteville to frolic with the family and the Razorbacks so we decided to participate in the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival. This unique running event is held on the University of Arkansas cross country course and starts with a 10K run open to the public then a morning and early afternoon of men's and women's cross country races at the collegiate, high school and finally junior high level. Several dozen collegiate teams were there from all across the south and there were masses of youngsters. It was a little chilly when we arrived, but once the sun came out and we started running, it was about as perfect of a fall day as you could ask for.

I've never run cross country so it was a very interesting course. Most of it was on grass with an occasional portion on a gravelly road or path. There were a few little ups and downs but nothing out of the ordinary when you run on Little Rock streets. The hardest part was staying sure footed on the sometimes uneven terrain, nothing outrageous like single track trail, but just required a bit more attention to detail than mindlessly running on pavement.

The course was three loops so the fast ass leaders looped us pretty quickly. Originally BJ and I had talked about running together and making it a pace run for our half marathon, but let's be honest, he's faster than me. It doesn't make me mad, but I also can't stand seeing him get irritated when I'm not keeping up and he wants to pull away. I kept saying, "take off and run, no seriously, just go" and he eventually did. There's no point in me holding him back when he can push harder and besides, I have no problems racing solo - I've been doing it for over a year anyway :)

We both were doing a 4:1 run/walk ratio and once I found my groove, it worked great. I wasn't pushing super hard because I was using this as my weekly long run for my half mary - the schedule was 7 miles but I figured 6.2 was close enough. I was just enjoying the people around me, watching the collegiate men warming up on the course as I was making my third loop, and the cheering of the crowd. In the end I was slightly behind my only other 10K race time and finished in 1:08:19 which is a 11:01 pace per mile. This put me 12/19 for my age group and 434/472 overall (yes, the people running in this race were very fast!) BJ had a 10K PR of 1:04:42 and finished 412/474. After the race, there was the typical post race fare of bananas, water and cookies, as well as tacos and sandwiches catered by a local Mexican restaurant. We didn't feel like staying around and watching the collegiate races (we didn't bring chairs or warm enough clothes) but it was interesting to note in the results how incredibly bunched all the racers are in the collegiate division. Also of interest was how fast the high school and junior high kids run their 5Ks, essentially all of them kick both of our asses which is just sad!! :)