This is a small, very nice, race that is sponsored by the NCSU Air Force ROTC.  The 10k course is simply two loops of the same route on the NCSU Centennial Campus that is used for the Free to Breathe Lung Cancer 5k held a couple of weeks later.  The first mile is mostly uphill followed by a long downhill 2nd mile along Centennial Drive.  The 3rd mile is rolling and then you repeat. 

 

My strategy was pretty simple:  take it easy on the uphills and try to make up time on the long 2nd and 5th mile downhills.  The uphill part of that worked pretty well.  The problem on the downhill was that it was stormy that day and there was a very strong headwind throughout that section.  I checked my Garmin a couple of times and was actually running slower on the downhill than uphill due to the wind!  Hence my final time was slower than I had hoped for but probably reasonable given the course and weather.  

 

I hope this race gets additional publicity and more runners in the future.  The ROTC folks put in a great deal of effort which results in a really nice race.  I will certainly put it on my calendar again for next year.