On Sunday morning, I ran my first ever 10K.  For some reason, I am drawn to the longer races – marathons and half marathons.  I have been neglecting the shorter ones.  I’ve only run a handful of 5Ks and never a 10K.  I was pretty stoked for an automatic PR, but I also had another ambitious goal – to maintain a sub-9 minute pace for the entire race.  I knew the course had the reputation of being hilly, but I stuck with my goal anyway.

The starting line was packed and there was no designation for approximate paces.  I lined myself up somewhere in the middle of the 2,000 runners and hoped I was in a good spot.  Turns out most people didn’t try to think out their pace logically in the pack like I did so the first mile involved a whole lot of weaving.

My legs felt stiff in the beginning and the first mile was mostly uphill.  I thought about throwing my pace goal out the window.  I kept on trucking, reminding myself it was only a little over 6 miles.  After training for 2 marathons back to back, 6 miles doesn’t seem so bad.

The hills were tough, but I tackled them the best I could and passed quite a few people on each hill.  I was thrilled to see that I was actually maintaining a sub-9 minute splits the whole time.  On the hills, I would see my pace creep back up over 9 so I’d force myself to push a little harder.  For the last mile, I so badly wanted to pull my average pace down into the 7 minute range, but there was yet another hill and it wasn’t happening.  My pace for the last quarter of a mile was 7:01 though!  I’ve never run so hard for a race in my life.  I was glad I made the decision to wear my hydration belt so I didn’t have to bother with stopping at any of the water stations.

My official time was 53:14; an average pace of 8:31 – super fast for me! I don’t know all my finish placement details, but I know I was number 580 out of over 1,700 finishers.  Certainly not a win or anything, but that’s pretty up there for me!

I found that I really loved the 10K distance.  I definitely want to run more shorter distance races after my next 2 half marathons.  As much as I love distance running, I’m ready for a little break.  Time to focus on shorter distances and faster running!

After I got home from the race, I went out and ran another 4 miles with Zain in the stroller.  I’ve maintained a streak of running double digits every weekend since the Baltimore Marathon in October and I didn’t want to break it.  I really had to fight to get it done because I was so beat from the race, but I did it!

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