tl;dr -- finally got that sub-1:20.  (Annihilated it, really.)

It looks like summer really is over.  Since I did not bitch about the heat, I can now begin to complain about the cold… because I so did not miss having to freeze my ass off before a race!!  And it was only 55°.   Heaven help me when winter comes.

Anyway!  I might have been an ice pop before the race, but it was decent running weather, which is good.  Because if I didn’t get a PR — sub-1:20, to be specific — my head would probably explode, since I’ve done it several times in half marathons, but never in a ten-mile race.  It has been driving me absolutely bonkers.

You know what else is driving me bonkers?  The fact that my corral assignment was the same as last year.  I realize that NYRR changed their system and all, but even taking that into account, my pace improved by over thirty seconds since the 2014 iteration of this race.  Why am I condemned to spend all eternity in this corral?!

In any event, I woke up bright and early (well, dark and early) so that I could get to the Bronx early enough to run a few warm-up miles.  That didn’t quite happen… I mean, I did get there at the planned time, but after waiting in porta potty lines (twice) and checking my bag and shivering with Dahlia for a bit, I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, and just ran one mile before getting into my corral about ten minutes before the gun.

My grand plan was to run somewhere around 7:40-7:45… because if that felt relatively easy, I thought I could tack on another 3.1 miles at that pace in Staten Island and get a HM PR.  (Even though that course is a bit tougher than the Bronx, as I recall.)

The first mile was a huge logjam, as usual.  I’m surprised it wasn’t much slower; but when I saw the 7:29 and realized it felt okay, I decided to just go with it and run by feel instead of paying too much attention to the watch.

It worked out spectacularly, if I do say so myself.  The course is just as topographically friendly as I remembered — I like gentle rolling hills like these.  (I also like the out-and-back portions of it, where you can see the runners ahead of you and behind you.  Keeping an eye out for people I know distracts me from the fact that running races is a stupid and masochistic thing to do.)

The 1:10 pacer was at the front of my corral, and I guess the 1:15 pacer was at the back.  She caught up to me around mile 5, and there was such a crush of people around her that I just wanted to get away from them.  I wasn’t going to fall back on purpose, so I had no choice but to stay far enough ahead to avoid getting caught up in the pace group.

I do have to thank them, though, because I undoubtedly would not have finished as fast as I did had I not been trying to keep ahead of them.

The last couple of miles were kind of rough.  For some reason, mile 9 seemed to go on forever.  I mean, after the fact, it makes sense that those two miles felt harder — they were the fastest, and at the end of the race.  But it was a bit discouraging at the time, since I thought that I was keeping a steady pace.

The mile markers did not match up with my watch at all (some came way early, others way late), but according to said watch… 10.10 miles in 1:13:45, 7:18/mi.

As it turns out, I ran a lovely negative split.  (And the 5-mile split is faster than my actual PR.)

Officially, 10 miles in 1:13:41, 7:23/mi.  That’s a PR by almost seven minutes, which is what happens, I guess, when you wait for something as long as I’ve waited for this!  (It’s also less than thirty seconds slower than my 15K PR.  But that race sucked.)  981/9349 OA, 117/4411 F, 34/1018 F30-34.

Also!  This was my ninth marathon qualifying race this year, which means…

I have guaranteed entry to the 2016 NYC Marathon.  Which is a race I’ve always not wanted to run, but I guess now I’m running it.  (I’ve also earned guaranteed entry to the 2016 NYC Half, but sadly, I won’t be able to run that again because I want to run Jerusalem, which is the same weekend.)

And thanks to this new system… my NYRR bib pace dropped by ten seconds.  Think that might move me up a corral for Staten Island?!

Oh, oh!  McMillan predictions for a laugh…

1mi — 6:06.9
5K — 21:14 (6:50/mi)
4mi — 27:35 (6:54/mi)
5mi — 35:12 (7:02/mi)
10K — 44:05 (7:06/mi)
15K — 1:08:18 (7:20/mi)
HM — 1:38:17 (7:30/mi)
FM — 3:26:50 (7:54/mi)

Hm.  Some of these don’t seem so outrageous.  That’s kind of frightening and awesome at the same time.

Photo taken by Linus at mile 9 — nearly there!  (Speaking of which, it is far more annoying to have a spectator screaming, “Only a quarter mile to go!” when you know for a fact that there is at least half a mile remaining than it is to hear “ALMOST THERE!” at various points along the course.)

You have been KILLING IT this year - very nicely run, thanks for sharing!

Yep, spectacular.

Awesome race!  Nice RR to go with it.

Oh wow!  Way to speed up at the end!  Congratulations on the fantastic race and PR!

Great splits, wow!  So is this your strongest PR (as far as looking at the equivalents at other distances)?  If so that's amazing since you were doing all those 5ks over the summer.  I know running long can carry over to faster paces in shorter races but I never really thought about it the opposite way, or at least not for distances as far apart as 5k and 10 miles.  (I'm certainly hoping mile training will carry over to a faster 5k for myself!)

I think this is her first race with decent racing weather.  The other ones were hot and humid. So now we get to see what she can really do.

...Good to see you pleased with a race result FFS.

lol lol - you've been paying attention!

That sounds almost exactly like a breakthough 10-miler I had back in 2001 when I ran 1:13:21 with negative splits. And I went sub-21:00 and sub-45:00 on a hilly course that year so those McMillan times are well within your reach. Looking for more PBs from you.