Friday night at 7:00 there was a sudden change of plans. We found out that our college team was running in a meet in Moorhead, which is basically the same distance that we were planning to travel for the 5k road race. Even better, the meet actually had a 10k that didn't start until noon. We figured that the race distance would make more sense for me at this point in my training and the time of the event was much better for our schedule so we made the swap.
It's been a long time since I set foot on a track =) They ran the men and women together and there were a total of only 12 runners (4 women). I knew one girl was a 38:00 type of runner and I wasn't sure about the other two. I had never raced a 10k before so my plan was to try to run as even as possible... we figured 6:25 pace was a good place to start.
The weather was perfect.. 48 degrees, sunny, and a light wind. After the first lap I settled in to almost exactly 6:25 pace. Unfortunately, the faster girl was already getting away from me and the other two girls decided to sit on me. They both dropped off after a few more laps and I was left running by myself. The good news is that I was incredibly consistent... 95-97 seconds/lap. The bad news was that I wasn't really racing. I came through the 5k in 20:11 and was feeling really comfortable. After the race, I asked Eric how much of the race should have been uncomfortable/painful. He said all of it. I knew at that point that I really didn't know how to run a race that long. Part of the problem was that I have not raced in a long, long time and the other part was that I just didn't know what to expect from that distance. Anyway, I stayed pretty consistent through the second half with the exception of the last two laps which I finished in 2:57 (final lap was 85 seconds). I could really tell there wasn't much speed in my legs. The second 5k was 19:47 for a total time of 39:58... I was pretty happy to have snuck in under 40:00. I am pretty sure I had more in me but am still really happy with the effort. I was pretty comfortable for most of the race and think that if I would have been able to run with someone or have had someone to chase I may have raced a little more. Right now I feel more like I ran a 10k today than I raced a 10k today.
It was a fun day. The kids had a good time at the meet and it was fun to see our old coaches and some of the runners that we know on the team. It was a pretty crazy thing to be back on a track.
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2 comments:
Congratulations on a sub-40 10k, as well as doing negative splits. And if you see it mainly as a learning experience, it's even better.
Well Done!
I'm a bit late on this one, but I was glad to read about it. If nothing else, you definitely got to see a snapshot of where your training has taken you so far. Sub-40 on the track by yourself cannot be fun, and from my few attempts at half the distance on the oval I can say that it's hard to dose out the effort correctly. That being said, it sounds like you ran a very solid race.
I'm glad you and the family had a nice weekend, and do take care of those IT bands.
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