Elizabethtown Twilight Trot 10K Results

I had a major problem on Saturday afternoon with a horrendous throbbing pain emanating from the base of a tooth on my upper gum. The pain was debilitating and intense. In order to sleep Saturday night I had to take pain pills left over from a kidney stone bout of mine several years ago. The pills did not work for alleviating the pain associated with my kidney stones although they worked well for my toothache/gum pain.

I awoke Sunday morning to find the left side of my face swollen from an infection within my gums. It was not slightly swollen. It was facial disfigurement swollen. Because my body was actively engaged in fighting this infection my blood pressure was escalated, on the order of 180 / 120.

I did not want to withdraw from this race because I had trained fairly rigorously and was confident I could do well. I also was not convinced there would be any correlation between my gum infection and my ability to run effectively. Finally, the weather was nice with the temperatures in the low 80's and the humidity was bearable.

My family and I drove to the Masonic homes campus in Elizabethtown. This is a beautiful place to see. There are colorful flower gardens and the buildings are all made of stone which give them a regal character. There also is an abundance of trees which provided a small amount of shade on the course. My eldest son Dylan was genuinely impressed by the natural beauty of the grounds. We had just found and old digital camera for him and he was taking lots of pictures.

This was a smaller event, maybe one hundred runners. The course turned out to be the most challenging I have run to date due to the number of hills. In fact, I believe of the 6.2 miles of this course you would be hard pressed to find one flat mile of course in total.

The first four kilometers of the race was consisted of a series of up hill climbs. I completely exhausted my energy reserves during the third kilometer of the hill climbs. This should have been my first indication I was not physically in a condition to run this race. Two kilometers is 1.2 miles and three kilometers in 1.8 miles. I have never tired this early in a race, although I don't believe I have tackled a two mile long climb on a course or in training.

As much time as I have dedicated to beginning races slower in an effort to preserve energy I failed once again as I ran the first kilometer in 4:59. The combination of fending off an oral infection, poor personal race management and a tough hilly course yielded my worst effort of the year. I took an hour and four minutes to complete this 10K race. I completed a 10K training run in under 56 minutes this past week. I need to write this race off as a venture I should not have participated in due to my compromised health.

I was terribly dejected after the race. I need to redouble my efforts and become a smarter runner if I have any chance of completing my 20K race in two weeks. Fortunately the next race is billed as a very flat course with only two hills on the 12.4 mile (20K) course.

I was prescribed antibiotics today to address my infection. I will be getting a root canal early next week to remedy my current ill.