10k race report

Ran a 10k race this morning. Finished in 42:04 which is 4 seconds slower than I wanted and 2 seconds slower than my unofficial PR for the 10k set while doing the first 10k of a 15k race. I'm okay with it if the course is right since it still beats my true 10k time set back in 2006.

I was the first overall male!! As you can probably tell, there weren't any real fast people racing this. To give some perspective, there was a half marathon being run at the same time and the winner of the half had a faster overall pace than the winner of the 10k. BTW, the winner of the half did this while pushing a jogging stroller. In fact, the first 4 finishers of the half had a faster overall pace. Anyhow, i didn't come in first overall in the 10k as a woman beat me by 14 seconds to take that honour. I have no problems with that. I get the feeling though that she wasn't really going all out and could have easily have gone faster. The winner was actually one half of a pair of twins. The other twin finished behind me in third. The twins race together and wore matching outfits and were easy to pickout in the crowd. There are also much faster than me since they have done sub 40 minute 10k's and sub 1:30 half's before.

The oirignal schedule had the halfers going at 7:00am and the 10kers going at 7:15. I wanted to get up and eat a bagel at 5:00, but didn't until 5:30 or so. I thought it might be too late to eat a bagel so i downed a gel instead. Left home at about 6am for the 30 minute drive out to the race. Taking to heart previous comments about me depending on HR, i wanted to run this by effort but still record the HR for reference. I was scrambling in the morning to find some electrical tape to cover the HR reading on my watch. The best i could find were some file folder labels, but I ended up forgetting them at home.

Arrived with about 30 minutes to spare and picked up my bib and chip. The start for the half was delayed however as a wicked thunderstorm had come through the previous night and flooded and knocked down some trees on the trail. The city decided this morning that they couldn't let the race use the trail since it was now a hazard. This affected the half course, but not the 10k course. They rejigged the course and decided to have the 10kers and halfers start at the same time, but have the halfers do the 10k route twice, plus add a little bit to the half route to make up for the extra 1.1km they would have to run. Starting the race, i set myself not too near to the front. it took me about 8 seconds to cross the start line. One thing I knew was that I had to stay behind the twins since i knew they were faster than me. I had hoped to run this in just under 42 minutes which is 6:45 mile pace or about 4:12/km

Start out at what feels like a nice easy pace. Pass the first km marker in 4:01. Whoops a bit fast. Keep motoring right along and pass the 2nd km mark with a split time of 4:02. Sometime during the 3km, I pull up behind and end up passing one of the twins. 3rd km split was 4:01. The pace felt sustainable, but based on my past expereince with the 5km and doing 4:00min/km pace, I wasn't sure that it would be a good idea to hold this pace. By this time, I had banked about 30 seconds of time which was quite a bit when you think about it. I slowed down during km 4 to try and get back to the proper pace. If I could hold 6:45 pace the rest of the way, even with a bit of a fade, i could comfortable finish in under 42 minutes. KM 4 was in 4:14. The km markers after this were all screwed up and the split times were all over the place. I had no idea how much time I had to make up or afford to lose. For example, I passed the 8km mark of 31:41 which can't possibly be right since it means I could have averaged 8 min/mile pace (5:00min/km) for the final 2km and would have finished in under 42 minutes. I was certainly going faster than 8min/mile pace. With about 800m to go, I turned on my kick only to be surprised when I got to the finish line and the clock was already over 42 minutes.

So I finished 2nd overall, first male overall and won a $25 gift card and a little trophy. I'm sure I would have finished faster than 42 minutes if the km splits were more accurate. I'm not entirely certain that even the first couple of km which were clocked in at 4:00min/km were accurate. I probably should have worn my garmin, which I did last year and was thankful that I did cause the course was mismarked last year too. I think I may use the $25 gift card to partially offset the purchase of one of those new forerunner 405's.

Also, if I had known that I would have had a legitimate shot at finishing first overall, I would have started closer to the start and kicked for the finish a little earlier. As it turns out, the difference in the first place finishers chip time and mine were only 10 seconds which I think I could have easily made up. Mind you, that's assuming that the first place finsiher ran the same race. It's more than likely she could have outkicked me if she needed to.

I'm hesitant to call this a PR yet since I'm not entirely certain that the course is 10km long. I tried to plot it on google earth and it might be 10km but it really depends on the exact location of the turnaround points which I'm not quite sure where they were located. I'm hoping that someone will upload the race to Motionbased so i can find out.

The stats:

Lap	Lap Time	HR Max	HR Avg
1	04:01.3	183	172
2	04:01.9	183	179
3	04:00.7	185	182
4	04:14.1	186	185
5	03:21.1	187	185
6	04:28.2	187	186
7	03:28.5	188	187
8	04:05.2	187	186
9	10:25.1	188	187

Finish time of 42:04 which is 4:12/km or 6:46 pace. Maximum HR reached was 188 which I suppose could have been a few beats higher if I had pushed more, especially towards the end. No HR spikes which is good though the HR monitor wasn't getting a good reading right at the start.

So that's it for summer races. I'm getting my wisdom teeth pulled in about 2 weeks and I'm sure I won't be in great racing shape shortly after that.