Jingle All The Way 10K - Run10k

Huh? A PR by almost a minute and a half!

There were a lot more people than last year, so that first mile reflects the insane amount of dodging I had to do and a shuffling start. However I felt pretty relaxed. This wasn't supposed to be a big event for me, and I left the Garmin at home and just took my basic race watch. We had a bit of a headwind on the way out, but that meant I was really looking forward to the tailwind coming home. I settled in during mile 3 once the traffic had also settled down a bit, and although I noticed that I'd picked up the pace it was at this point that I thought I might have a good event in me, since I was feeling very comfortable and loose. But I wasn't taking anything for granted; during the recovery period my long runs have all started well and then ended. . .less well. Having done some endless loops of Haine's point for the marathon training I realized that one of the reasons why my race fell apart last year during mile 5 is that there's a subtle uphill grade there, so I made sure to put in more of an effort this year: the time still dropped, but not as much. Then I kicked it in to high gear for the last part (and the last 0.2 is about as fast as I would typically do a good Econ 400 at the track).

I'm not sure since I never expected to do this well.

1 mile jog to Foggy Bottom station, then half mile run from station to home.


I wasn't pushing really hard because I didn't no how well I had recovered from doing the marathon. Because this was only ever meant to be a fun run I had a couple of hard workouts this week and up until yesterday my legs felt completely trashed.


I'm really pleased because this is exactly 4 weeks after the Richmond Marathon and it indicates that the recovery has gone pretty well. And this was never intended to be anything less than a fun run. Good lesson about the benefits of being really relaxed for a race.

Or maybe the motivational secret is in not being able to pee before the race. Concentrates the mind wonderfully on that finish line!