Even though I decided to forgo the St Louis Half Marathon next weekend, I thought it would be fun to test myself at the Capitol City Classic 10K today. I've never run a 10K, but I assumed that I'd be good to go given that I've been building my mileage with my training for St Louis. My plan was to shoot for an 11:30 min/mile pace, but to have no guilt in slowing down for walk breaks if my knee started to bother me.
First of all, it was damn cold this morning in Little Rock! Despite having had temps up to 80 degrees earlier in the week, at race time it was 35 degrees, overcast and breezy. Of course after wintering in Denver, I'm not afraid of a little cold - I was just sad that I couldn't wear my new purple and black running skirt that I ordered from www.runningskirts.com. As usual, I was running late this morning ... had a fun date last night that went well but as previously mentioned we'll keep that off the blog this time around :) So I spent too much time in the shower trying to wake up since I am NOT a morning person, then I was scrambling to get dressed, feed the dogs, and gulp down a few spoonfuls of oatmeal. I couldn't find my warm running hat - cause it would have made too much sense to look for it the night before - but luckily I found my Mizzou beenie to keep my head warm.
I got to the race site with less than 10 minutes to spare, I shot a Gu, used the port-a-potties and only had to stand around freezing for a few minutes before the race started. A sidenote, while I was waiting for the port-a-pottie, I made a comment to another gal that "I hope there are some slow people here today!" because looking around you could just tell that these were some seriously, fast runners. She was very nice and reassuring, "oh of course there are! I'm not planning on going very fast either." Turns out she's got a marathon coming up so she's taking it easy, which marathon I asked? Yeah BOSTON!
Don't even pretend you're slow to me, if you're a Boston qualifier!! (for those not in the know, qualifying for Boston is a pretty tough thing to do - basically it would only be in my dreams!)
The race started and I went out pretty fast - like a 10 minute/mile pace. I felt OK and my heart rate was fine, but I didn't want to use up too much too soon. After the first mile, I settled into a nice 11 min/mile pace and found several people around me who were running right around the same speed. I wasn't feeling cold, it was a nice flat course on the road, and we even passed a few horse farms and a cattle lot (Moo!). By the second mile, I had decided to just run the whole thing and only stop to walk for water (I learned last year that trying to drink while running only gets me a really wet shirt!). The first water stop was around the 2.5 mile mark, which is where the loop of the course joins the out and back portion. The really fast runners were already heading back to the finish ... see I told you this was a fast group of people! I probably walked for 15 seconds tops, then was back at it. The rest of the race was totally uneventful, I struggled at times to stay on pace because I kept wanting to go faster, and it wasn't until the 5 mile mark that I just decided to let go and see what I could do. I had enough left in me to sprint the last portion and that was the only time I even felt a twinge in my knee. I finished strong at 1:06:18 which corresponds to a 10:41/mile pace - which is SMOKIN' for Jenn!!
I grabbed some pizza, cookies and fruit, then headed home to the warmth of my apartment. I knew that I was in the back of the pack so it wasn't like there was an award waiting for me or anything :) In reviewing the data from my Polar running computer, it turns out that I actually got faster as the race went on which is awesome! Since this is my first 10K it's a personal record, but I'm positive that next time I can definitely go faster!!
Results
Race time = 1:06:18 (10:41 pace)
Age group place = 16 of 19 (yeah, I'm a back of the pack kindof gal!)
Overall place = 234 of 264
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