When I realized that The Family was all going to be away Friday/Saturday (even the dog!), I decided to do The Heart of the Summer 10k.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, since I haven’t raced a 10k for ages and I haven’t done any other races recently to gauge my fitness.  Like I blogged about earlier this week though, I FEEL like I’m getting speedier, so I was excited to race this 10k and see where I was, fitness-wise.

My 10k PR is old, but actually a pretty decent PR (not sure what I was doing in 2007 to be in such good shape that Fall!).  It’s 46:55 (7:34 pace) from the Nickel Dickel 10k in September 2007.  I think I’m in better shape now.  I figured if the conditions were good, I could do 46:00 (7:24), or better.  So that was my goal.

The result?  Epic Fail!  49:36 (7:59 pace).

The Bad:

• It was HOT.  78 and sunny and humid (until the last mile, when it got cloudy).
• I made strategy mistake from the get go.  I knew it was too hot for my goal time. I know that I am not a good heat runner.  I knew that I should adjust my pace from the start, to take into account the heat.  But I didn’t.  I still went out at sub-46:00 pace.  And it killed me.
• My splits!  They are the perfect example of what NOT to do in a 10k!  7:26; 7:35;  7:55; 8:04; 8:17; 8:11; 2:09 (7:28 pace)
• I gave up, mentally, after the 2nd mile.  It was hot and I knew I had started out too fast and so I pulled back, told myself not to bother racing because I had fucked it up already.  Told myself to save the body for the 17 miler tomorrow.  Told myself that I suck and that I was overly ambitious/unrealistic and wasn’t a 46:00 10k’er.
• I wore the speedy new Mizunos and didn’t love them on the road.  They gave me blisters (my feet were soaking wet at the end from sweat and/or water that I had poured over my head at multiple water stops).

Now, since Coach had said a few weeks ago to look for the positive from races and figure out how to apply that, here you go.

The good:

• I finished in the Top 100 out of 469 people!  (99, but hey, it’s top 100!)
• If this race was held on August 9th, I would have been 2nd place female masters!  There WILL be benefits to being The Big 4-0!
• I was able to do the last mile a bit faster than mile #5 and the last .20 at 7:28 pace (which was just 2 seconds slower than I did my first mile at)