riverbend festival

every year, madness converges upon downtown chattanooga for 9 sweaty, loud, drunken days. i biked down a few nights to help out with Outdoor Chattanooga's Bike Valet (free bike parking right outside the gates!), sneaking in on occasion to catch some of the groups on the smaller stages (in particular, Bluetastic Fangrass, Alejandro Escovedo and Jennifer Daniels were awesome!).

there is also the annual Riverbend 10k/5k run. i decided to jump in the 10k as the week's speed workout. i haven't done a road 10k since the '05 Peachtree, so it would be interesting to see how my speed was progressing. it was one big messy mass start - 1100+ runners were participating. luckily wide roads helped people spread out quick. the course was ok - it started downtown, through the mess of early morning music festival grounds before trash cleanup, over a few bridges for some hills, along the riverwalk, and down the not-so-scenic amnicola hwy. my first 2 miles were good, the next few hurt a bit more... a bit literally, as we were mostly on nasty concrete with no give for your joints. short races are tough for me; i have to remind myself constantly that it will be over soon so there is no time to relax.

around mile 5.5 we're back in the festival area and merge with the 5k course. normally i wouldn't have thought this to be a problem, but with lots of walkers meandering along, it got a bit tough for us runners wanting to push through quick. in one spot i was trying to pass a pair of women chatting it up, when one veered into my path with a baby stroller. aaack!! luckily no one went flying, but my groove got out of sync. seriously race directors, this sort of course planning is simply not smart.

anyways, mishaps were avoided and i made the final turn and started the ascent to the finish line (how cruel!) i finished with a guntime of 56:50, a pr for the 10k distance. go me!! it ended up being good enough for 2nd place in my age group (out of 35 women). and because i'm a statistics junkie, that put me 6th overall woman, and 57/337 total in the 10k. not so bad for an off-road endurance runner ;)

one note of something new i tried pre-race: banananuun. MMMM! go out and get some. this stuff is fantastic and only around for a limited time!

EDIT: As I was so kindly reminded, locally in Chattavegas you can purchase nuun at my favorite running shop, Fast Break, and my favorite outdoor retailer, Rock/Creek. Show your love to these fine retailers!