1 - 9:06
2 - 9:18
3 - 9:48
4 - 9:14
5 - 9:35
6 - 10:11
7 - 9:43
8 - 10:26
9 - 10:02
10 - 9:09

My splits were all over the place! Yikes. I guess I started out too aggressively. I haven't raced this distance since April 2009 so I didn't know how to pace this. I figured that it'd be nice to at least average a 9:46 pace, since I ran that a month ago at the Portland Half Marathon.

For the first 4 miles or so I hung onto the heels of two girls who were running together. That was probably a mistake. I wasn't feeling so hot at the mile 5 turnaround - hip soreness and a weird feeling in my stomach. I figured I'd have to wait to take my gel until closer to mile 5.5 when I'd hit the water stop. I was worried I might not be able to stomach the gel, but when the time came I took it and felt better not long after.

A bit after the turnaround I spotted lizohal and it was nice to see a familiar face.

The course map say there was a water stop at mile 7 and I think I hit my watch late. So that accounts for a bit of the wacky looking pacing, but the rest of it was all thanks to me! That's assuming the mile markers were places correctly.

I never really felt good during this race, and you can see it in the splits. As I came to the end I really wanted to eek in at or under 1:35 and that's evident in my 9:09 pace for the final mile! I can't complain too much, since this is a 17:44 PR! The funny thing is that the last time I did a 10 mile race I PR'd by about 18 minutes as well! I'm glad I have a recent time that I can hopefully work on next year.

Run more even splits and not go out so fast.

I grabbed my medal, a banana, cup of water and mini bottle of Powerade. Oddly, I never noticed sports drink on the course. I walked up and down the finish area a bit and waited for lizohal to cheer her into the finish.


Probably started out too fast and I haven't done speedwork in ages. I'm also wondering if some of my hip soreness came from the fact that I ran and walked lots of hills last weekend in San Francisco.


Pros:
-Lots of bathrooms if you were willing to go to the beginning of the pier. Didn't bother me at all.
-Could wait inside right up until the start.
-Gear check was easy
-Some vendors were there giving out Kind bars and a fake Muscle Milk type drink

Cons:
-Path can be narrow
-Race started late, and a bit earlier than the 30 minutes late that they quoted
-Didn't seem to see sports drink, maybe only at one table?
-The finish area was wide open to tourists at Navy Pier, sort of wacky when you're trying to run in strong

I might do this race again, depends when my schedule is like next year