This was a very humid day with temps in the mid to upper 70s, near 80 by the race finish. The course was extremely challenging with the first 1/2 mile uphill and the finishing 2 miles with 3 solid hills that covered well over a full mile of uphill over the last 2.5 miles of the course. I had hoped to run sub 40 today, but with the hills it just wasn't in the books. I drove the course at 6:30am, and knew that the hills at the end would come into play, but I think I really underestimated their impact as my splits will show. The first hill was a good 600 yards at a solid climb as well, but I had some experience with this one as it was part of my 3.9 mile warm up in 30 minutes (7:42s). After the race was over I got in another 3.75 in 31:11 (8:19s).
The 10k had 175 finishers and the start was narrow so I wanted to get out front immediately. My plan was to try to run 6:15s as long as I could and I think I could have come close to averaging that, but the hills from 4.5 on just killed any remote chances of that. My first mile was in 6:08, which was probably too fast considering the hill. I should have gone out more conservatively around 6:20-6:25 I think. I was in 4th place at this point where the 5kers (another 130 so racers) turned off on their own route. I actually felt very good through mile 3 and thought I had a chance to hang around the 6:20 mark. Splits for the 2nd mile was 6:16 and mile 3 was 6:20 (I was probably running around 8th at this point with a group of 5 spread out just over about 50 yards in front of me. The course was flat to ever so slightly downhill from about the .75 mark until about 3.75 or so and I tagged along most of miles 3 and 4 with another runner. My 4th mile split was 6:33 and the hills were starting to really kick in. In relation to the other runners I was gaining or losing ground, it was killing us all equally. The 5th mile was by far the worst uphill stretch with a split of 6:49. The finishing mile also contained a solid uphill section, but I was able to dig down and pick up the pace a bit here. I passed my only racer of the race here on this section with about 1/2 mile to go and then rounded the corner at the top of the hill to the finish. My finishing 1.25 miles split in at 8:33 (6:50s). So splits at a hole were as follows:
6:08, 6:16, 6:20, 6:33, 6:49, 6:50 -- I have to say that I'm not happy about this positive splitting, but honestly I felt that had this finish not been so heavily uphill laden that I could have held the last 3 miles to sub 6:30s which would have put me close to a 6:20 average. This race was also 6.25, so the converted time would have been 40:20.
The good news, despite what I consider to have been a poor race time wise, is that this is a PR for me since my return to running in July of 2007, with a full 2 minute improvement over a much flatter course I ran in Michigan back at the end of June. So I'll take it and begin my taper for the Lewis and Clark 1/2 Marathon in 2 weeks. The bad news is that they only gave out 1 overall competitive prize instead of the top 3. 3rd overall was in my age division, so that bumped me off the medal. Booooo!
Nike Elite - 294.15
Asics Gel Speedstar 2 - 60.55 | 