Heart & Sole 10k

Here's how this one went.
Rather than the expected rain, Saturday opened partly cloudy and cool. I threw in a pair of light gloves and added a compression T under my shirt. I wore a sweater around the house and for a while before the race began. The temperature when I got to the race was 50, with no wind.
After picking up my race packet I still had 50 min. to the start, so I went back to the car to stay warm. It was warming up fast, and I watched the thermometer rise to 58 degrees by 7:25. I took off my sweater, tossed my gloves aside, and headed out for a warmup of 1.75 miles. Despite a slow pace, I broke a sweat doing it, but now I didn't have to use any of the race getting loose and warm.
The first quarter of a mile of this race is downhill, which is a great way to start out. After that there's a climb of about a quarter of a mile, and then it's very gently rolling the rest of the way. This was very nice course.
I kind of thought I needed to start out around 9 min., but my pre-race warmup meant I could do better than that, and I clocked 8:11. After that it was just a matter of running just short of oxygen debt, so the final miles were 7:48, 7:47, 7:57, 7:36, 7:43, and then 2:44 for the final .36 mile.
My GPS timed me in 49:47, or a 7:50 pace for 6.36 miles. I was aiming for 50 min., so I'm happy with the time. My gun time was 50:02, the same as my chip time, which makes no sense to me, since it took several seconds to get to the starting line. Looking at all the results, I see that everyone's chip time was the same as their gun time, so I think they really haven't posted chip times yet.
There were only 8 men in my age group, and I was 5th. The top three finishers in my group were under 41 min., and the winner came in at 38:23, which in my book is smokin'. There were 158 runners in the 10k, and I was 52nd.
This is a pretty good race, and I'd recommend it if you're looking for a 5 or 10k next year at this time.