The Night Run 2014 Scottsdale 10K Race Recap

After my performance in the Rome Marathon back in March, I decided to concentrate on the half marathon distance and working on my speed on the shorter distance before tackling the marathon distance again, so I decided to incorporate some new events (the duathlon) and some shorter distance runs, like The Night Run 10K to work on my speed.

April was definitely a recovery month for me, and I’ve yet to run over 8 miles since the marathon, which worries me a little since I have a half in 2 weeks but I trust my coach and my training. 🙂

But I digress and that’s not what this post is about now is it…without further ado here is my recap of the 2014 Night Run 10k.

I registered back in February during “early bird” registration so I was able to get in for $30 for the 10k, which is an awesome price, I know that was $5 off the regular early bird price of $35 so if you waited until day of, it was probably around $45, give or take, I’m not sure since I registered so early.

I did this race back in 2012 when it was an 8k.  The city of Scottsdale requested that they change the course this year, which in my opinion was a great thing.  The year I ran it, we were running around Old Town, which is cool, but there were cars backing up and driving by so I much preferred this years course.  So this year on 5/10/14 they had the first 5k/10k event.  Very cool that the date & the distances matched up :).

We had the option to either pick up our packets before the race or on race day.  I wanted to look at some new shoes so I headed to one of our local running stores, I-Run on Saturday morning to pick up my packet.

They have some nice tech shirts (although they are a little thin for the white color – I can see right thru mine) and they also gave us glow in the dark bracelets for the race.

Night races can be difficult to fuel for because most of us are used to racing in the morning.  I’ve actually been running a lot in the afternoons lately so I think that may have helped me out this time around.  I ate a normal breakfast, a foot long oven roasted chicken sub from Subway for lunch, a piece of fruit in the afternoon and then a piece of bread with peanut butter about 2 hours before the race.  I drank a ton of water, because it was somewhat hot outside.

One of my friends, came with me to the race, after I commented about 15 times about how I haven’t had anyone come cheer for me for the majority of my races.  (I think I guilted him into it – LOL joking)  So I told him that his job as my spectator was to hold on to my stuff and be my official photographer :).  Of course I forgot to mention this until we were on our way and for a night race, the iPhone doesn’t do quite as good of a job as a real camera with a good flash, but it’s all good.

We got to the race location about 75 minutes prior to the race start.  I like to get to races early, I don’t want to have to be searching for parking when the race is starting.  This location is really good, by the Scottsdale Civic Center, and there is a garage by the library that is a short walk to the start line.

They had a lot of vendors around the start area, we just walked around for a few minutes, mostly so I could get some photos and see what was going on, before sitting down to chat before the race.  I don’t normally have anyone around to chat with before the race, outside of other runners, so I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t have a chance to hit the bathrooms a second time before the race. Ooops! uh yeah, that wasn’t fun, I had to go the entire race. Burnt Toast moment #1 🙂

The race started at 7:30pm and both 5k & 10k were on the same course, one loop for 5K, 2 for 10K.  Once I found my spot, one of my running buddies and fellow Ragnar Trail Zion teammates, found me.  We barely had a chance to say hi, he asked me if I was running for time or fun and then we were off.  I really wanted to see what I could do, so I think I lost him pretty quickly.

Burnt Toast Moment #2 came at the beginning of the race.  I forgot my case for my phone and I was planning on putting it into my spibelt but I again wasn’t paying attention to what was going on, so totally unlike me, and I didn’t put my phone in the belt before the race started so I was having trouble fitting it in and didn’t want to waste time.  I ended up carrying my phone in my hand or under my tank top strap.  I was a bit nervous about that though because during my first marathon I burnt out the camera from not having it in a case from the sweat, and I’d be lost without my phone camera.

Back to the race, I didn’t want to go out too fast because I am notorious for dying at the end but it was a really fun course, I enjoyed it.  Some road, a little greenway, more road, no parking lots :), a couple of minor hills and just a overall fun course.

My Garmin was only 4 seconds off my official time, probably because of turning it off after the finish line.

The only time in the race that I had any doubts was in Mile 5, we turned the corner onto Drinkwater and it felt like the wind really picked up.  I just tried to maintain my speed the best I could.  The wind died down once we turned onto Indian School and by this time I had been passing a lot of 5kers.  There was a guy who passed me briefly before we turned the corner for the last 100 meters, I thought he was going to try to race me to the finish, so as soon as I turned and saw the finish line, I picked up the pace and was back to my sprinting days, I could feel my knees were higher and my stride was longer, it felt amazing and it was even more amazing when I realized that I PR’d the race by 21 seconds.  Technically it was a bigger PR than that since the course for my last PR race was almost .2 mi short, but on athlinks it’s 22 seconds :).

This is the only official photo I had and it’s not the best, although I do appear to be floating – LOL.  I was totally spent at the end of the race, I gave it everything I had.

They had tons of food and water after the race – I knew it would be dark after the race so I snapped a pic before hand.  Cold water bottles, fruit (apples, bananas, oranges), clif bars, cookies & pretzels.

All in all this was a great race and now that there is a 10k race, I would definitely do it again.  It’s one of the last races in the Phoenix area before it gets too too hot.

Have you ever done a night race?  Do you fuel any differently for a night race vs a day race?