On February 17, 2018 I ran the San Pasqual Valley 10K.
There was also a half marathon option but it was up a mountain and I hate running up mountains, so I didn’t sign up for that one – plus, all the good runners can do that one. This was the inaugural race at this location but I looked up results from other locations of the same series, and found that the competition was not terribly high, so I knew I’d be running close to the front.
Within the first quarter mile, one other runner and I opened a gap with third place. I let him lead for a while to judge the pace and terrain, and my watch clicked 6 minutes as we passed mile marker 1. Now, this is a groomed trail with some narrow areas, so some portions aren’t easy to pass in. However after hanging in second for about 1.75 miles we got to a passing section and I figured I could probably take the lead and see about starting to pull away, which is what I did.
In addition to there surprisingly being no race officials at the turnaround point (someone could cut it by just turning early). The out-and-back course can be a bit awkward because you’re now running on already narrow trail past people that are coming the other direction. I extended the lead throughout the second half and finished in first by about 45 seconds in 00:38:47.
I always have a little imposter syndrome if I win a race because it obviously doesn’t happen in any races with a medium-large turnout
