Veteran’s Day 10k

This weekend I ran my second road race, Capital Running’s Veteran’s Day Day 10k on the Tidal Basin.

I decided to run this race because my training plan suggested that I do a 10k as part of my prep for the Half Marathon. A 10k is about half (6.2 miles) the Half distance (13.1 miles), so it’s a good feel for a bit longer race. And Carlos was nice enough to let me twist his arm into doing it with me join me.

It was a beautiful day for a race. Mid 40s at the start with no breeze, light cloud cover. A day when you can run without feeling gross. I feel like I do my best with these cooler temperatures, so I was ready to run!

Except, I wasn’t quite. The whole week before the race, I was dealing with some niggling hip pain. Nothing serious, just some soreness, which I think might be related to pushing myself on pacing and distance in the week before the run, which is a no-no. From what I read, you’re supposed to work on one or the other, and since I’m training for my first Half, I should really just be focusing on distance. My bad. The result–I ran only once the week before the race, and I had a total layoff for three days before the race. This was enough to drive me nearly batty (I can be sort of a gym rat) and I felt pretty tight at the start of the race. So I took it slow at the start and eased into my race pace around the second mile.

Someone who didn’t ease in at all–that guy above–who won the race for the second year in a row. And he finished in under 30 minutes. Yeah, his time was half mine. Oh well.

Overall, this was a very competitive race. Flat course, fast pace. I finished just under halfway through the female field. Lots of college cross country teams came out to do this race as training. So I didn’t feel fast by any stretch, but I didn’t feel slow either.

I don’t know if I eased a bit too slowly, or if I held back some the second half because of my hip, but I finished just high of my goal time of 60 minutes–my chip time was 60.02. Those two seconds are haunting me, because I know I have a faster 10k in me. In fact, my overall pace of 9.40/mile should have had me under an hour, but because the course was a bit long, I was just over. I was disappointed when I saw my results, because my watch had me just under an hour, but such is the way of the race.

I was happy about keeping myself to a good pace and running negative splits through the race:

Mile Pace
1 10:02
2 09:51
3 09:40
4 09:30
5 09:30
6 09:25
7 08:38

I was also happy because I ran EVERY STEP of the distance, and I think I’m in reach of running the whole WDW Half! I had been thinking I would need to do a Galloway style Run/Walk, but I would love to run the whole thing!

I’m also thankful for my great support system–Noel (who was guest photographer for the day), Eileen (who made our awesome sign), and my running buddy Carlos. Go team U.S.!

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