I know I’m slow by most standards, and it was a small field.  Still… it was super fun to get my first AG award!  

The leader of my running club is the race director for this local 5k/10k, and pretty much everyone in the club does the race.  So peer pressure was the main reason I signed up.    My last 10k was almost a year and a half ago, at 1:01:49.  I really wanted to get under an hour today, but I haven’t done any speedwork at all geared toward the 5k or 10k distance, so I wasn’t sure if my conditioning had improved enough for that.  I had tried a couple of tempo runs at goal pace in the last 3 weeks, but could barely keep the pace for 3 miles.  I wonder if that’s because the first time was at the tail end of marathon training, and the second time was a week after the marathon!  

Before the race, I ran a .6 mile warmup to work out the sluggishness.  (note to self for later, I probably should make it closer to a mile warmup).  I wanted to make sure I didn’t go out too fast, but I didn’t want to go out too slow either and have a big deficit that I needed to make up.  So I kept a close eye on my watch. I started off at goal pace of about 9:40, but gradually sped up because I felt pretty good. The only time I wondered if I could keep up the pace was right after mile 4:  “uh oh, I need to do this for another 2 miles?”  But I kept focusing on the finish line.  I was running in a weird zone of disbelief that it looked like I would finish in under 58 minutes.  And I did!  My official time was 57:48.

My splits were

9:18
9:22
9:23
9:14
9:27
9:20
8:56

When I saw that I had placed 4^th in my age group, my first thought was to discount the whole idea, “Well, I probably came in 4^th out of 4.” But then my friend pointed out that the race was going 5 deep with the AG medals. And suddenly I didn’t care if I came in 4^th out of whatever…I was getting an AG medal!  (it turned out to be 4^th out of 15). 

I feel really good about the race.  It was the second time in two months that I set a goal for myself that I wasn’t quite sure if I could meet, and I beat it.  I kinda needed that boost after the recent disastrous LA Marathon.   It confirms my plan to focus on shorter distances for a while (13.1 and less).

Sweet!!  Congrats on the AG bling!

The only time I wondered if I could keep up the pace was right after mile 4:  “uh oh, I need to do this for another 2 miles?”  

That sounds about right for a 10K! Awesome job and congrats on the AG award!!

FWIW I like to warm up for at least 1.5 if not 2 miles with some strides thrown in at the end before a race - with your mileage, experimenting with longer warmups shouldn't tax you too much.

Woo hoo!  Great job on the AG award!  And for coming in sub-goal. That's one happy runner pic!

Fantastic time and beautiful splits. Congrats!

Awesome, awesome, awesome, Congrats! That is a great picture of you too.

Well done!

and echo Lauren!

Congrats on the AG Award and 10K PR!    Woohoo!