Ran one of my key races this season, the Middlesex AA Championship 10K in Victoria Park. This is competition between clubs, so the field was pretty top heavy, small numbers and absolutely no frills. Not even water at the finish, and no clock at the finish either. Timing was manual, no official results yet, so my time is from Garmin (which kicked in about 0.1 mi into the race).
I had no expectations given my crazy training last month (or lack thereof). I thought I would be lucky to get 47 min, so I'm happy with my time. I also ran a good race, paced it well, and had a strong finish. Generally, the effort was getting harder as I went, but I was able to maintain the same pace, and I'm pleased with that. The course was great, 3 loops in the park, only one sharp turn, and only one noticable incline, for all practiacal purposes it is a flat course. Conditions were perfect as well, so today was a PR day. I will remember this race for next year - hopefully I will be in better shape and can have a shot at PR there.
Here is how it went:
1km - 4:36, 0.53mi (Garmin kicked in late)
2km - 4:44, 0.63mi (7:32 pace)
3km - 4:37, 0.62mi (7:31 pace)
One woman passed me here, and I briefly thought of latching on to her, but then decided to stick with my comfortably hard pace - 3km is too early to surge, especially in my poor surrent shape. I never caught this woman, but I shortened the gap by the end and finished about 50-60m behind her.
4km - 4:45, 0.65mi (7:19 pace)
From time to time I'm passing people who started too fast and are paying the price now. I'm glad I am holding it steady.
5km - 4:42, 0.63mi (7:28 pace).
It starts getting harder for me and I'm wodering if I started too quck. But my pace stays constant.
6km - 4:41, 0.64mi (7:19 pace)
8km - 9:27, 1.27mi (7:27 pace)
I never saw 7km marker. I'm beginning to struggle, but still catching up to and passing some people. No one is passing me.
9km - 4:35, 0.64mi (7:13 pace).
I'm trying to speed up in these last 2 kms, and I do have something left. Definitely hurting now, but hanging on and trying to finish strong.
10km - 4:27, 0.63mi (7:05 pace)
In this last km, I caught up to a guy from my club and we engaged in a duel for about 100-150m. It was great, neither one of us wanted to yield, he was a big guy, and probably not happy about woman passing him right before the end, so he fought hard. But he was redlining and breathing like he was having an asthma attack, so when I sped up even more, he just couldn't hang on anymore. But I heard his wheezing all the way to the finish, so he was probably only 10m or so behind me. This little duel helped me to finish strong.
I'm happy with this race. Considering my current condition, this is about the best I could have hoped for. I felt faster than my last 10K in June, and I felt much better. That time I started too fast, and then suffered after only 3K, but this time I ran controlled all the way, and felt tons better.
P.S. I just saw that my first 5K was 23:24 and second 5K was 23:14, a tiny negative split. Yet, I notice that every time I run a negative or even split, I feel so much better in a race, then if I do positive splits. It may not necessarily yield faster times, but I certainly feel stronger. And for me, negative or even splits usually produce fastest possible time as well. Except, maybe, in 5Ks. | 