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University City Memorial Day 10K/5K (Read 357 times)

    Ran my first 10K today at the UCity Memorial Day run. This is the 32nd year they've held it and it's a nice loop around one of the oldest suburbs of St. Louis. Easily 1200+ participants so it was quite an experience for a noob like me. The weather was cooperative (overcast but not raining) but humid (70F and 95% RH). We started off on time and I was about 10-15 seconds back from the start line, which was OK since it gave me enough time to turn on my mp3 player, HRM, and garmin (I really need to cut down on the number of devices I carry or acquire a few more fingers). I was determined not to go out to fast and crash later (like I did in my first 5K 3 weeks ago) and the steep grade on the first 500m made that a little easier to actually do. It seemed like everyone and their mother was passing me the first mile but it didn't bother me too much since this was my first time out at this distance and I knew the first half of the race was basically uphill and the last half downhill (except for the last 400m, another steeper uphill), and I'd catch a few of them later on (some i did, some i didn't). I hit the halfway mark right about where I wanted to (29:30 or so) and found out the downhill part wasn't all downhill Big grin. I also found out I should 1) drop more weight as I speed up too much downhill and slow down too much uphill, and 2) train more on uphills, and 3) train more on uphills. I finished around 57:50 so I was pretty happy with the result and the lessons learned: lose fat -> go faster at more even pace; hills, hills, hills (hmmm... where have I heard that before...); have enough left to sprint at least a little bit at the finish. I think I'll do another 5K in about 3 weeks. I did stick around and cheer in the rest of the field including a few acquaintances I found right before the start. It was quite inspiring to see everyone pushing their own limits to finish. My 1/2 mile splits if you are interested were: 0.5 4:53 4:53 1.0 9:32 4:39 1.5 13:49 4:17 2.0 18:55 5:06 2.5 23:38 4:43 3.0 28:46 5:08 3.5 33:20 4:34 4.0 38:01 4:41 4.5 42:48 4:47 5.0 47:29 4:41 5.5 51:49 4:20 6.0 56:21 4:32 end 57:50 0:89
      Great for you first 10K! I thought about doing a 10K today... so glad I did not attempt it!

      Vim