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NJAC 10k

May 2, 2015 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
It was a little warm and sunny so not the best conditions but certainly could've been worse. Warming up, my legs didn't feel super springy and my breathing wasn't as comfortable as I wanted to be but I brushed it off, got focused, did my strides, and was ready to go. I was either going to set out for a pacing plan of 84 seconds per lap or 85, but considering the way I felt warming up, I figured 85 would be better to start off with. Off the line I went out smooth and didn't really focus on getting out hard because I knew my strategy. I had a feeling everyone would go out hard, but they really took off. After two laps I was almost an entire straightaway from the rest of the field, which was sort of embarrassing and people were telling me to get up there, but I was through in 2:50 and I had a plan that I wanted to stick with. I knew the level of some of the guys in the field and that if I continued at my pace, it is a long race and they would eventually fall back to me and pay for going out so hard. I came through the mile in 5:40 with even pacing and was satisfied. It felt incredibly easy like I knew it should. The 2 mile came by at 11:20 with even pacing again except this time I was a little surprised that my legs burned more than I thought they would this early in the race. I didn't expect to hurt at all until at least 5k. Mark told me my 5k split was 17:40, so I knew I was still on good pace even if it wasn't as easy as I had anticipated. After the first half, the race was weird for me. It was pretty painful and I felt like my legs were burning and my breathing was heavy, but somehow with each lap that came around I didn't slow down. It was a strange feeling of feeling better and worse at the same time as the race went on. I thought about how long I still had and thought about dropping out or slowing down but that was just my head messing with me. I knew that the guys who had gone out hard and couldn't hold it were starting to fall back to me and slowly I started picking them off. Somewhere between 4 and 5 miles in, someone told me that 8th place was right in front of me and I saw that those guys were getting closer to me each lap. I just hung with the pace even though I was hurting and eventually I found myself in 8th place, fighting to hold that pace. With 1k to go I was hurting but I did everything I could to hold my spot and ended up closing pretty well. My last lap was a 78 which I was pretty happy with considering I have no wheels at all. I finished in 35:17 and got 8th which is nothing crazy fast but I was satisfied. I think I am more happy about the consistency of my splits than I am with the overall time. It was probably one of my better races considering I ran even, hung in there even though I was hurting, and was able to get in somewhat of a strong finish. This was not the spring season I planned on having, but with a decent setback early on, I can't say I'm upset with how it ended up. All that's left for this season is the Brooklyn half and then I'm resting up for summer base building.

Race splits:
5:40, 5:40, 5:39, 5:39, 5:41, 5:40, (78)
Last mile including the 78 was 5:32