UAE Healthy Kidney 10k Recap

Just a quick background for those wondering what the UAE and Healthy kidneys have to do with one another. The race itself was to support the National Kidney Foundation, and was sponsored by the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and in honor of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, who was a beneficiary of a kidney transplant. With that, onward to the recap....

First thing first, another PR! Finishing about 34 seconds faster than the Scotland Run 10k, with a final time of 1:01:14, translating to a 9:52 minute mile pace.  It was a nice 60 degrees (though 78% humidity), mostly cloudy, and winds were calm, making it a pretty nice running day. This was a fairly crowded race, with over 7500 runners.  Again, being in the last corral, it took nearly 14 minutes to reach the start line. To think, the winner (who also set a new course and world record) had already completed 3 miles, since his splits were: 4:17, 4:23, 4:17 for the first 3 miles. Crazy. Anyway, its such a slow march to the start, I actually darted over to the port-a-potty for a quick potty break before the start! Jumped back into the march and finally got on my way.

First half of the race felt good. Legs were strong and was keeping a decent pace. Only problem, as stated earlier, was the crowd. I expended a lot of energy trying to get around people. This most likely caused by many who do not line up in the correct corrals. Its quite irritating! I was trying to find someone to pace with, but sadly could not. I usually am able to find someone to pace with at least for a while, but not this time I guess. Get to mile 4, back on the east side and I'm really starting to lumber a bit, the only thing keeping going at this point is knowing that I have Cat Hill (going DOWN!) coming up and that I'd get to recover there.  Turns out it didnt help too much, and I had to push through the last stretch on the east side, south of 72nd.  I reach the south end and see the "800m to go" sign. I kick it up a little. Then the "400m to go". I kick it up a little more. "200m to go" and I turn it up more. I feared that I may have turned it up too early and am really running on fumes at this point, had to really dig deep to keep it up until the finish.  Looking back though, this is probably where I gained most of the 34 seconds when compared to the Scotland Run, so I'm glad I kicked it up where I did.

So tomorrow will be the Wall Street Run (3 Mile), and it looks like it'll be another rainy one. I'm not looking for any kind of PR, since all that I've heard and read says its ultra crowded. Then again, whatever time I finish with will technically be a PR, since I've never done a 3 mile race before, HAH! Will catch a couple week break [from racing] after that, then the Celebrate Israel Run on June 5th. Will be back Wed. for a recap of the Wall Street Run.

Here is a map of the course (same course as the Scotland Run 10k, which is why it says "Scotland Run")