Penny

A PR is still a PR. Honestly going out 20 seconds fast probably cost you quite a bit of time. Its a learning experience... I think were definitely in shape to run 40.

You've done some great training this fall and while the race results haven't been exactly what you wanted, that's part of the sport - you move forward and then eventually crush the goals that seem hard to break right now. You'll do that!

Congrats on the big PR! Maybe not exactly what you were hoping for, but progress is progress :). I agree with Jake that the fast mile in a 10K probably hurt you a little bit in the race. In my opinion, 10K is the hardest distance because you are hovering on a fine line of going too fast and too slow.

Thanks guys! Yeah, I definitely learned from this one. I think this is just one of those times where my racing experience has not quite caught up to my training/fitness levels. Cant wait to give these distances another go though!

Andrea I really agree with the 10K. It feels like you need to start fast but then about half way through you realize that it is taking a lot of endurance in a sort of half-marathon type way. I'll be interested to compare how I do with some better racing strategies in mind :)

I was thinking about your first mile in relation to my own paces. I can run ~4:50 pace for a 10K. But if I started out at 4:35, I'd be CRAWLING to the finish line. The 10K is an unforgiving distance when you go anaerobic in the first mile. There's a really fine line you can't afford to cross. Its hard to figure that out until you've run some more races... but you will figure it out w/ more experience.

Holy moses, that put that mile in perspective. No wonder the 6:50s felt hard after that. This is my first year of racing and I think the biggest difficulty has been not having a history of race times to draw from; and thus really only taking a shot in the dark in guessing what goal pace is appropriate for each distance. Now I have a few races under my belt I think I can probably aim a bit more accurately and get my times down according to my previous fitness levels and current training.

Do you guys post your splits from your races? I might go stalk your pages :)

I have mile by mile splits for every race where my watch functioned correctly. Look at my 10K from Portland last June. That was about as even of pacing as I've been able to do in a 10K.

I will look at that. And did you run that evenly intentionally? How did you determine what would be your appropriate pace (assuming it wasn't a tempo or training run for another race)?

Ok, it looks like you were racing that but it was part of your training (and indicator of your fitness) for the half? What calculation were you using to determine that it wasn't quite the equivalent of the 65min HM?

As a side note, it is beyond my ability to comprehend running in the 5s, let alone the 4s :)

Are you running a 5K any time soon? It would be fun to see you run in the low 19s or maybe crack that sub-19 barrier.

You know, I was juuuuuust considering that. Im going to take a few days off running and maybe catch a 5K this weekend or next week! I dunno about sub-19, but I'd love to have a 5K time to work off of!

19:30 would probably be a very realistic goal though! :)

That 10K I ran in Portland was an all-out effort. My main focus was the 1/2 the following weekend, but I still really wanted to try and break 30 minutes. I kinda knew I'd be close just based on the workouts I had been doing over the previous month, and some recent shorter races. Like I said, w/ more experience, you start to get a very good sense of what you are capable of in races, w/out under or over estimating your current fitness too much.

The McMillan calculator and Runworks are good places to go for conversions b/w different race times.

I agree w/ Andrea that if you have a chance to jump in a 5K, just do it. Having a benchmark time will be really useful during your next cycle of training.