Well my 5th Tri-Span Race is now in the books. It has got to be the most challenging 10K course I’ve ever run due to the heat, humidity and hills (it crosses three bridges and the 2nd one is the toughest). Their description on their race page says in part “You know it’s going to be HOT so take the challenge with the humidity, heat, and hills of Wilmington!” They aren’t kidding. It’s been HOT every year. It was around 78* at the start at 7:05am and in the mid 80s by the time I finished. (See pic of my brother Chris and I turning to the finish after ascending the hill. We had both shed our shirts on the second bridge😂).
This year the course was slightly different due to some construction in the downtown Wilmington area. So according to my Garmin and my brother’s Polar watches the course wound up being actually 6.36 miles long and this year finished with a hill climb right before you turn to finish! When my Garmin showed I had ran 6.2 miles I was still looking for the finish and I asked my brother ‘where in the world is the finish!’🤪😂 Anyway, I had 3 goals:
A) finish in 55 minutes or better
B) finish in less than 58 or
C) finish faster than last year
This is a hard race to PR but according to the chip time I finished the 10K in 59:07 beating last year’s time by almost a minute. But last year’s time was based on a course that actually measured 6.2 miles. And according to my Garmin I finished the actual 10K portion of today’s 10K+ in 57:55 which is a new overall 10K PR for me(see screenshot from Garmin Connect)! I had a blast either way and PR’d either way on a really tough course. This is my running anniversary race so I always love the challenge and best of all I got to run it with my brother and my running buddy Gary Lee ran it too.
And my sweet wife, @lisajean1971 , ran the 5K and she finished with an amazing 4 minute PR over last year’s time!! Way to go Lisa!!! Thanks to my coach @Jim_burrows_runs for training and encouraging me. I wouldn’t have improved without ya bro! And thanks to my brother for running with me and pushing me. He is the one who talked me into that first Tri-Span race back in 2015 which got me into this crazy running life.