Footstock 10K Race Report

Packet Pick Up
I drove up to Cochrane Friday evening to pick up my bib and t-shirt for Footstock. It was a pretty small expo, just a few booths. When I got my t-shirt I asked if I could use my own timing chip which seemed to create some confusion. Luckily a lady was able to help me out and we changed my chip number in the computer system. After that was sorted out I walked over to the HSBC Calgary Marathon booth to scope out the medals from last year. While I was there two other ladies came up to the booth and started talking about how tough and hot the full was last year. Fingers crossed it won't be that warm this July... We started chatting and they just ran a marathon in Rome this past March. Sounds great! Apparently they love signing up for races to get the bling. I had a good time chatting with them and it sounds like they run a lot of races, and they are interested in the Goofy Challenge one year. After that it was time to head home, carbo load and get some rest!

Pre-Race
I was actually scheduled to run 8 miles today, so I headed out to Cochrane a bit early to get in that extra 1.8. I wasn't as early as I wanted so I tried to get it done quickly and finished in 19:17. As I was heading back some of the volunteers were out getting the water stops set up. Time to drive off to the race start!

The Race
They had quite a few events going on today - a full and half marathon, a 10K and a 5K. Tomorrow they are having a kids tri and an adult du as well. The marathoners started off at 8 am, then all the 10K folks started lining up for our 8:20 start. The race started off on the road, and the one and only hill was in the first mile for us to climb. Only one side of the road was shut down for us, and unfortunately some drivers were impatient and didn't understand the need to slow down as they were driving past us. Luckily we made it off the roads pretty quickly and were on to Cochrane's red shale pathway that runs all along the Bow River. It was absolutely beautiful out, sunny, but not too hot. The 10K course overlapped a bit with the full and half marathoners which was pretty neat. There were also great spectators and volunteers out there. I really appreciated all of their cheering! We did an out and back on the pathway, and it started to thin out quite a bit.

When I realized we were close to the finish line I kicked it into overdrive for what I could muster for a last sprint. I passed a couple of people, but all of a sudden....whoosh....past me....flew the 4th place half marathon finisher. Holy smokes he was fast!!! I'm not sure of the official results yet, but I recorded 1:05:39 for a 10:36/mi average pace. I shaved a bit of time off my last 10K, and that was with the 2 mile warm up beforehand!

After the race was probably one of the best spreads I have seen...a pancake breakfast with sausage and coffee! They also had bagels, bananas, oranges, cookies, juice boxes and yogurt as well. I saw the medals for the half and they were super cute, plus they got really nice technical tees. I may add this one in for next year. I got to see the medal for my upcoming Calgary half (well, last year's medal anyway), and I have to say that the Footstock medal greatly trumped the medal from the Calgary half...sniff, sniff.

All in all, a great morning!