Again short on pictures, nobody wants to get up early with me to go to races anymore. lol

Short version:  40:59, 36 second PR, 10th in my AG

Long version:

This was my first time running the Elizabeth River Run 10k, and it's now one of my favorite races that I've run and I can't wait to do it again next year.  Great course along the water and through old towne Portsmouth.  Goal was sub-40, but I didn't have high hopes for that given my hip pain and lack of running recently.  I may have given myself a little too much rest, but I wanted to play it safe instead of missing the race.

Miles 1-2:  Great start, very little traffic at the start, was able to easily get right on pace.  First two miles were 6:25 and 6:20, perfect.

Miles 3-4:  Still not sure if this was mental or physical, I'm guessing more mental again.  Started to fade, I let myself latch on to a small group of runners and started pacing with them instead of pushing to stay on my goal pace.  I forget my splits, but it was definitely slower.

Miles 4-6:  Definitely mental, even tried telling myself that I felt fine, which I did, but just maintained a comfortable pace instead of pushing, allowing myself to get passed by people that I should have been able to keep up with.

Final .2:  Misjudged the finish line, I thought there was one more turn, so I didn't have much of a kick, probably a few hundred feet when it finally hit me that what I was looking at was the finish line. lol

Overall I'm happy, I think I still gave a fair performance given that my mileage is way down this month.  But I'm not happy with my mental game.  I think I said the same thing in my last RR, it's definitely something I need to work on.  I need to get refocused and get some motivation back.  I think I've gotten comfortable with where I'm at, and it's time to step it up a notch.

Oh, I completely forgot to mention the wind, which probably did affect my performance to a certain degree, but I'm still blaming my lame brain. lol  The wind was pretty crazy along the water, and coming around one turn the timing was just right, the wind kicked up, mouth was open, yup, mouthful of dirt/sand!  Gotta love crunchy gum! lol

I have the OK5K coming up in two weeks, this was the first race I ran when I started running last year.  It's a great race on a cross country course and I'm really looking forward to running it again.  I've got some good competition in my age group now, and I'm going to need to go low, low 19 or sub-19 if I want to place.  I think the fitness is still there, if I can push myself hard enough.

Only one pic, this is the group pic of our Tidewater Striders team.  As part of the ERR 10k, there's a friendly rivalry between a few of the local running clubs.  Each club puts together a 25 person team, and the top 20 runner's results from each team (age graded) go into the "competition".  I was very happy to be part of the Striders team this year.  It was really close, but we pulled it off with a 79.95% to the 2nd place PTC/CRR's 79.31%, with HRR coming in third with a 75.32%.  To their credit, HRR is a younger (and much faster) running club, they took home most of the individual awards, but the age grading hurts them for this competition.  Here's the Striders team (I'm about 4 from the right, standing in a white singlet and sunglasses, already have a beer in hand lol):

Nice job and congrats on the PR and helping your team win!

I continue to be super impressed by the way you come through setbacks like this hip thing.  You seem to to a nice job recognizing the small stuff before it turns into a major issue.  That's not easy to do!

As far as the race, I wonder if your brain was in "HM" mode rather than 10K, since I think you've done mostly longer races and 5Ks lately.  I think you've gotten your half and 5K pacing down fairly well now, but to me the 10K is such a completely different head game.  Not short enough to just throw the hammer down, but not long enough to get comfortable.  At least based on my grand total of one 10K, hehe.

Good luck on your next race!

Congratulations on the new PR, especially since you've been hurting lately.  Sounds like a nice run, except for the mouth full of sand.

Way to go! Awesome job sneaking in under 41, that's a great milestone! And yes, wind can definitely be a factor--probably more so than you think! I've had it slow me down by like 10-15 seconds in a 5K.

Good job Dave.  10k is an odd distance, like Mel said.

Your RR's always make me miss the Hampton Roads area.

Great job, Dave!  That's really fast (as always!)

Racing against my own defeating thoughts is the hardest part of racing for me, too.   But you're such a strong (mentally and physically) person, I know you'll continue to sharpen your racing ability.

A PR and you weren't at 100%?  Rock on, that's impressive!

great job...congrats! that was some close gap between the first and second place teams.