Had a 10K race this morning i had signed up to last year. Originally it would be test race to help set a pace for my May 1st Marathon but due my recovering state I didn't want to race it. However i thought I might as well run it and pick up my finishers medal because I was planning on a 11-12 mile run anyway, so could do 2mile warm up, run the 10K and enjoy the music, then do another 3-4m. Planning to do the whiole thing at my easy aerobic pace of about 8:15-8:30, a mile, maybe let myself do some 8's and 7:45 home stretch mile etc.
Turned up and it was freezing cold so started my warmup. Very big race event, lots of people out from the elites to 70 year old obese women. First warning sign was my second warmup mile was in 7:30 pace, oops.
Anyway, got to starting corral, I was in the 3rd fastest corral (our of like 25 maybe) after my marathon time form last year but I dropped back a couple more so I wouldn't get in peoples way. National Anthem plays, everyone cheers and gets pumped up, so much energy at the start. It was very hard not to get drawn in to the excitement. The gun goes and the elites head out at sub 5min/mile pace.
A few minutes later its our turn and I try to stick to 8/min a mile, which was really hard without concentar8ng on my gamin since the whole crowd is trying to go faster, which was kind of silly because the group I joined should have been averaging the low 8s. By the half my mark I had sped up to 7:30 min/mile which i was a little worried about but legs felt fine so at that point I went with the flow and sopped worrying, ignoring my watch.
I passed mile 1 and just kept enjoyment he atmosphere, at mile 2 I looked at my watch and saw I ticked of a 7min/mile. Oh well, so much for taking it easy, lets just keep going and treat this as a tempo run, 6 miles at Lactate threshold is great marathon training.
I reach the halfway turn around feeling good and another 7min/mile. I ddin't realize but there was actual a head wind and a slight climb, so running got much easier past mile 3 and so I found someone that looked to be a little slower than me to stick to, again to control my pace. Didn't work because mile 4 was 6:40 mile, by that point i said screw it,lets turn on he gas a little, the next mile was in 6:25 or so, and then a late surge getting to 6:00 mile pace for the last 0.2.
Finishing time was 42:50, not bad for a training run with an 8:00 starting pace. Quite pleased with that time because it was run very conservatively until mile 4. Does make me wonder how close to 40:00 I could have got if I was fully healthy and raced it from the start line in my allocated faster corral. Always hard to know these things because the slow start made it easy for me to finish strong, passed so many people form mile 5
Hip feels about the same as it has after every run this week, good, but not quite 100%.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1119193335
