Saturday morning I woke up for the Middendorf’s 10 mile race in I had signed up for last week. My family used to go to Middendorf’s when I was a kid and meet up with friends they knew from Baton Rouge. I don’t remember much except the restaurant being in the middle of nowhere and they had really good seafood. I thought it’d be cool to go back to a place I hadn’t been in a while to do something I had never done. I had looked at the course (it was down and back on old US 51) and noticed it included the bridge over Pass Manchac. No problem, I’ve run over bridges before.
I got there with plenty of time and was glad it was not raining. The forecast didn’t look good all week, and on the way there I passed through rain, but once I got about 10 miles north of Manchac, things cleared up. I got my number and met up with my friend Megan. The race started a few feet from the foot of the bridge, and I looked at it and thought “on the way back, i’m going to smoke that thing.”
The race started off like most races, having to be patient and pass people. I don’t know why slow people always try to start at the front. It didn’t take long to get into a groove within the crowd though, and once we got over the bridge I wasn’t really slowed at all. They had a 5K race also, so all those people turned around at the 5K turnaround, while the rest of us kept going for the 10 mile. I felt good pretty much the whole race, but my knee was bothering me a little. No hamstring or foot issues though, which was good. It started sprinkling about mile 2 or 3, and I thought the rain would get heavier, but it never did. The leaders passed me going back when I was around mile 4, so they were going pretty fast. I noticed my iPod was off around mile 3, and said I had not reached mile 3 when I ran past the mile 3 sign. I realized this must mean I’ve been running longer than it’s been giving me credit for, which meant I ran longer than 8 last week. Maybe this 10 mile thing is going to be okay.
I hit the 5 mile mark with a pace under 10 minutes a mile. On the way back it felt like forever between miles 6 and 8, because there was no sign for 7. A few people passed me on the way back, but I kept thinking “I need to save my energy for the bridge”. That and I didn’t really have a lot of extra energy to keep ahead of someone, I just wanted to finish. Finally I made the turn to see the bridge in the distance. I still thought I was going to be able to race up and then down. I hit my iPod for my power song and started up the bridge. It was the hardest physical thing I think I’ve ever done in my life. It wasn’t hard at the beginning of the race, but after 9.75 miles it was excruciating. My thoughts went from ‘i’m going to sprint up this bridge’ to ‘this is harder than i thought’ to ‘OMG, i don’t want to do this anymore’ to finally ‘the top is right there, it’s almost over’. I hit the top of the bridge and was thankful for the downhill portion and finish line. My iPod only gave me credit for 9.5 miles instead of 10, but it didn’t matter. I ran TEN MILES and in less than 100 minutes, so less than 10 minutes per, 1:37:44. I was happy with my time and mostly happy to be finished.
Post race I noticed my shoes were SOAKED so before I ate anything, I went to my car to put on my soccer slides. I had read something during the week that when your shoes are really wet, to put newspaper in them while they dry so the newspaper soaks up the water. It took 5 full pages of newspaper between my two shoes to soak up the water. The shirt we got was kind of lame. Our numbers had crawfish and oysters on them, which was cool, but the shirt just has a running silhouette and the name of the run. I noticed with the picture, the numbers were dated for last year’s race, so I figure that’s a result of last year’s race being canceled.
They had the thin fried catfish Middendorf’s is famous for, along with the usual post race stuff like water and Gatorade. The food was AMAZING, and I might have been quoted saying “this is the best cole slaw I’ve ever had!”, and while I’m sure it was really good, it was probably made better because I had just finished a race. It was cool hanging out with Megan and Corey, eating good food, on a cloudy day in Manchac. Next race is the half marathon, which at least won’t have a bridge at the end.
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