Trail Running Blog

Cardiff Kook 10K Run Race Report

The 2^nd annual Cardiff Kook 10K took place on Super Bowl Sunday, which was a great way to justify all of the junk food that was going to be eaten later on that evening. As usual, I had not run very much prior to this race (twice in the past 2 weeks). To make things worse, I went snowboarding at Big Bear all day just two days before this race and was still super sore from that. The day before, I went for an easy 3 mile shakeout run with my sister to try and loosen up my legs. I’m sure it didn’t matter, but after we came home from our run, my 2-year-old nephew said he wanted to go running too! So we put our running shoes back on and jogged together to the end of the block, which he loved. I was able to get my brother and sisters to sign up for this 5K and 10K in 3 weeks and they also had a 1K kiddie run which I signed my nephew up for. It’s going to be such a fun day, I can’t wait for it!

Going back to this race, I was very surprised with the results: 6.20 miles, 45:45 (7:23 min/mile), 12/37 AG, 80/712 overall. The course was very straightforward: 3 miles south along the coast, make a U-turn back to the start. It was pretty scenic if you made the effort to look at the ocean on either side, but boring course if you ask me. There were a lot of people dressed up in costume, which was pretty fun to see. The website didn’t specify the course elevation and the only way I learned about it was from another runner who was talking about it right before we started. The first half went downhill and the 2^nd half was more uphill. I suppose my splits reflected that since miles 1-3 were significantly faster than miles 4-6. I couldn’t really tell when I was running uphill during the race, which meant the incline was very gradual (and according to the elevation profile pretty long!). My goal was to shoot for ~7:30 min/mile the first few miles and see how I felt the rest of the race. But like the rest of my poorly run races, I started off too fast (even saw myself in the 6 min/mile pace for a while). When a runner passed me, I didn’t really make the effort to try and run with them. But there were a few runners that I did run with during the first half of the race that I was able to eventually pass in the 2^nd half (unless they just slowed more than me..)

I was supposed to run the Rose Bowl half the week before but ended up going on a road trip to Arizona instead. That probably worked out for the better, I knew I wouldn’t have been able to properly compete in a half (would have been more of a 13.1 long run than anything). As I mentioned before, I have the Firecracker 10K in LA in 3 weeks. All of my brother’s runner friends have registered so it’s going to be a very big race for me; I need to make sure I keep my crown (of beating them for the past 2 years).  I’m hoping to go for a few longer runs (7-8 miles) and maybe some hill training before my next race. But we’ll see if any of that actually happens!