Chingachgook Challenge 10K

Phew, I’m finally home to blog about my awesome Saturday! Chris and I ran the Chingachgook Challenge 10K in Lake George today, and it was really awesome. But I’ll get to the race re-cap in a minute. Let me rewind to Friday night.

Chris and I were in the mood for pizza last night, so we headed over to Inferno Pizza in Colonie.

One of the reasons we wanted to go there is because they have outdoor dining and it was a perfect summer evening. Great for outside eating! 😉

We each ordered a drink, I got a glass of Relax Riesling.

Drinking wine was probably not the best idea the night before a 10K, but you only live once, right? I really wanted wine!

We ordered the Vegetarian Pizza.

So. Many. Veggies.

The pizza was pretty good, the juice from the veggies kind of made the crust a little soggy in the middle. The veggies on it were really fresh, though! I actually liked the last pizza we got at Inferno on the Fourth of July, the California Classic, better. But I’m all about trying different kinds, so we went with the Vegetarian this time.

So, this morning I had to get up at 5:00AM to get to Lake George for the 10K…which wasn’t too bad. I had thought the race started at 8:00, but it actually started at 9:00, so we were there an hour early. Better early than late right?

For breakfast I had two slices of toast with peanut butter and honey.

Chris made an egg and sausage on a mini bagel for himself. It looks really tasty!

I don’t think I could handle eggs before a race! I’ve never tried it, but Chris said it never bothers him.

Anyway, we got there at 8:00, so we had time to register and relax for a little bit until the start.

Chingachgook is camp on the East shore of Lake George. Its actually a YMCA camp for kids.

The 10K itself was an out-and-back course, just up and down the road that the camp is located on. And what was surprising about this race? There were probably 50 people, at most, running the 10K. There was also a half marathon that had started an hour before. Another thing that was really unexpected: the hills. Six miles of HILLS. They killed me. I am not used to running a course with so many hills.

Six miles of THIS! AHHHH.

There were hills in the beginning, and the end. The beginning was what killed me. I felt so out of breath from tackling the hills in the beginning, the first 3 miles were pretty torturous. After the turnaround point at mile 3 I felt a bit better, and there were a lot of longer downhills than uphills, which helped me gain speed and make up some time. I felt pretty good for the rest of the run. I even made friends with a fellow runner, a lady who was running along with me for most of the race! 🙂

Chris ran ahead of me after mile 3 (he is a natural sprinter from playing soccer his whole life!) so I put on my music and that helped a lot!

The end of the race came up really quick! It was kind of nice. I finished in under an hour by 30 seconds!

Garmin Stats
Total Distance – 6.14 miles
Total Elapsed Time – 59:33:99
Average Pace – 9:41
Average Speed – 6.2 mph
Calories Burned – 735

Splits
Mile 1 – 9:32
Mile 2 – 9:39
Mile 3 – 9:42
MIle 4 – 10:27 (wtf? must have been a hill!)
Mile 5 – 9:31
Mile 6 – 9:31
Mile .14 – 1:08

My splits were pretty consistent, not including mile 4. Can’t really figure that one out!

Chris finished in 55 minutes! Woohoo! 🙂

There was a barbecue after the race! Exciting! I was kind of hungry, so I grabbed a veggie burger and some chips.

The veggie burger was sooo disappointing. I ate less than half of it. 🙁 I grabbed a banana and some cookies to munch on, just because I felt like I needed food in system.

Chris enjoyed his hotdogs. He had three!

Then we hung around the camp for a little while taking pictures by the lake.

Overall, it was a pretty fun and low key race. It wasn’t overly crowded. Definitely a rural race. There weren’t any supporters on the road because it was back in the woods, but it was still kind of nice to be running alongside the lake. The only thing is, I don’t think I’d want to run any more than a 10K on roads like that. 10K is the perfect distance, not too long, not too short. 🙂 I’ve got another race under my belt!

The rest of our Saturday in Lake George will be coming up in my next post, so stay tuned!