Posted by Yesterday, I competed in a 10K!
This was my first race of 2021. It was also the first race I’ve entered in nearly a year and a half. I’m extremely grateful to make it back to the start line of an organized race after all this time and all the stress of COVID.
This was a very small road race, the By George, hosted by the local Potomac Valley Track Club and the first leg of their annual Ed Barron holiday run series.
It was cold. We ran around the beautiful but windy Hains Point in Washington DC. Temperature was 29ºF, feels-like 17ºF. We were quite lucky to get the race in mostly with calm weather. During my final mile, the freezing rain started and would continue for the rest of the day.
My finishing time was 42:42. I came in 4th place out of 13 total (I told you it was small). Here are the official results.
I also wasn’t think much about this race this past week. So far down the list of important TODOs this week it was that I showed up on race morning thinking I was to run a 5K, but I had in fact registered for a 10K! No matter, I’ll just have to run a little longer and slower, I thought.
I didn’t have high expectations for my results today. I was coming into the race with a fair amount of fatigue and stress. I’ve been training consistently for going-on seven straight weeks. Though I missed a bike ride and had a few easy run days prior, I didn’t exactly taper for this race. I also had a few bad nights of sleep this past week. All that to say, I was not well-rested.
I decided to run by feel. Though my watch was turned on, I turned the face to the inside of my wrist where I wouldn’t look at it. My main goal was to have the first mile feel easier than it should and to be able to run the last mile as best I could.
Over the first couple miles, I ran past a few folks that started faster than me, but after that, I was on my own. With so few people at the race, and all of us at different skill levels, it didn’t take long for the pack to thin out. I just focused on my breathing and my form—if either started to feel too difficult, I just scaled back. I was pretty confident I was running at the best effort I could hold over the 10K. At the halfway point, I turned up my effort just ever so slightly. I wasn’t significantly faster, but the key thing is I didn’t get slower in the second half. By the last mile, I was giving it all I had. As it got tougher, I just focused on my breathing even more. Big deep breaths carried me home.
There was a stiff breeze in our face on miles 3 and 6; you could see it in the times as I was about 15 seconds slower that my overall pace in those two segments. Just goes to show what an effect the wind can have on your run.
With a negative split of a few seconds, I think I nailed it. I didn’t feel particularly fast, but I felt _strong_. That’s a good place to be at this point of the season.
Photo credit MSGT Ken Hammond, USAF
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