Today was a fun race. The weather was great: low 70s with moderate humidity, and good cloud cover without any actual rain. There was a good breeze, but nothing too much. In other words, perfect PR weather. The course was fairly flat with just a couple of longer hills on it, run on asphalt the whole way. I didn’t make my goal, doubtless due to the last week’s non-training, but I did beat my previous PR by more than a minute per mile so that’s pretty cool in itself.

I got to the course about an hour before race start to pick up my packet and stretch. This time I did about a one mile warmup run at a 9:30 pace, then lots of ITB stretches and a few just general loosening up movements. I tried to stretch out my upper body, but nothing really helped a whole lot. The closer it got to start time, the more excited I was getting. Bumped into Alex, Jason, David and Leslie - the latter two were supposed to be running gently because they’re going to be in Chicago next weekend.

Time: 7:57 - 7:50 - 8:09 - 8:30 - 8:52 - 8:38 - 1:40 (7:40 pace)

Overall, I ran a 51:39 for an 8:19 average pace. The first three miles were pretty good, and I intentionally went out “slow,” but by the end of mile three as we got into a few hills, I just started lagging. I feel fine now, so I’m sure that if I’d been better prepared I could have run a much better race. Mile five was fairly sad - I just wasn’t excited about it any more at that point.

My shoulder bugged me a little right at the start, and picked up again for the last two miles, so that won’t have helped. I was also feeling the soles of my feet getting a little “warm” during the second half, which probably means that its time to buy new shoes. But enough with the excuses - I could have done better, and I didn’t, but there’s always the next race. This was an especially poor showing considering that I’d just run 7km at an 8:09 pace during a training run not that long ago.

One funny thing happened during the event - David had mentioned that he’d never broken 50:00 either, but was going slowly. He has a well known habit of going out too quickly at the start and then fading, and indeed he’d caught up to me by about the end of the first mile (he was aiming for a 9:00 pace, he says). We ran close for another mile or two, but then he slowly started pulling away. Turns out that he did a 50:08 - I can’t wait to see him do another 10k when he’s not tapering for a marathon!

Anyway, now I have hard evidence that I need to do a better job of building my base. My legs had strength, and my heart rate and breathing were doing alright, I just didn’t have the endurance practice that I needed to make my goal. The next race is a 10 miler in about a month, and I’ll be in about the same place for that one that I was for this race - not a good enough LSD build up. Still, at least my weekly mileage should be improved. I’m going to be travelling next week, but its on business and I’ve got a renewed sense of dedication. Treadmills, here I come!

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