Since this was my first 10K, I didn't know how I needed to pace it. I was targeting a 7:00/mile pace from recent workouts so I thought I'd try that and see how it felt. The first mile was slightly downhill so I allowed myself to go a little quicker. I lined up in the middle of the 6-7min pace group and it was immediately obvious that half those people are going to be running slower than 7 minutes. I did more passing than I expected that first mile but the crowd started to thin out after.

I spent the next mile trying to catch 1 runner at a time while keeping my pace consistent as possible. The hitch was right after mile 3 where we turned and went up a hill - and I had to remind myself to try and keep the effort even. Looking at HR, I let the HR climb a bit and it slowed down my pace to 7:15. I kept telling myself that if there's an uphill, there should be a downhill coming up and when it started to go downhill, I made sure to take advantage of it and lengthen my stride and make sure let gravity help me down and I balanced out the rest of the mile by running a 6:44 pace. I passed the 5K mark just a little under 22 minutes which was right where I wanted to be (almost a perfect 7:00 pace). I was passed by 1 person the whole race right around mile 2 or so, and I was able to pass him back somewhere around Mile 4 but he came back and I was with him for a while but I couldn't quite match his surge on the last mile and he finished a few seconds ahead of me. I pushed the last 150m or so as I was trying to come in under 44 minutes - which was my stretch goal. I wanted to be under 45 minutes but when I saw that I had a chance at being under 44 minutes, it provided that additional incentive. Nice to know I have 5:15 speed in me (though only for a couple of hundred meters...).

Not eat something bad the previous night and get some quality sleep time but as far as the race, I think I paced this as well as I could go. If I felt better, perhaps I could've ramped up the effort about another half a mile earlier, but I felt pretty good about the pretty even pacing of this race.

Just walked for about 5 minutes or so and took my Ultragen recovery drink afterwards. I ran into Coach Tommy (ziacyclist from BT) from Triple Threat Tough (my triathlon team) and he told me that I passed him midway into the race. I was wearing my TTT kit (I get some pleasure about letting the pure runners know that I was part-time runner :)...) and he saw me, but I was probably focusing on the runner or the road up ahead that I didn't recognize him since he wasn't wearing his tri gear.


Training - I have missed a few long runs so my aerobic endurance isn't quite there. I also need to try a little bit more quality sessions. As indicated before, I also got a stomach bug the previous night and didn't sleep well.


The race itself wasn't bad. I wasn't too happy about getting to one of the offsite parking spots and then it was full - but the person directing the traffic had no clue how to get to the other parking lots. The course was ok - it was accurate (my garmin showed an extra 0.07 miles which I can easily attribute to not running tangents carefully) but there were some sections that were pretty muddy and slippery because of the previous night's rain storm. My biggest disappointment was the lack of fanfare at the finish. Considering this was a big race - you'd think there would be an announcer and music to liven up the mood. The band on course was pretty cool though. Afterwards, the live band entertainment and the food was great. Had some pasta, cookies, yogurt, and an apple. They ran out of pizza pretty quick though.