Thankfully the temperature dropped to a pleasant 20 degrees for tonight's 10K.
The race starts with two laps of a running track and then has three laps around the park. This would all be lovely except the park lap includes a killer 150 foot hill. Doing this three times is enough to put anyone off running!
The first mile passed smoothly in 6:45 minutes but then it was down the hill and back again. The hill is so steep that it is hard to run fast down it. I just tried to maintain my pace and let gravity pull me down. On the way up my pace dropped all the way down to 9:30 minutes / mile but this was still faster than most of the runners around me and I did a lot of overtaking on that first hill.
On the second lap I was running behind a lady called Rachel who everyone was cheering on. She dragged me along at just under 7 minute / mile pace until the second hill at which point I overtook her and didn't see her again.
On the third lap an older man was in front of me, again at just under 7 minute / mile pace. I kept up with him throughout the lap and then overtook him just as we went back to the track for one last lap.
I managed to overtake one more runner on the track and finished with a time of about 43:40.
This was actually about 30 seconds slower than the first 10K of my recent half marathon but that hill adds on at least 30 seconds to your time each time you encounter it!
Overall I enjoyed the race much more than my recent half marathon as I ran within myself and managed a burst of speed at the end.
Ultimately it felt like a hard tempo run with some crazy hills!
Assuming I am still running in a year's time I would definitely do it again. It is too convenient and cheap not to!
Now time to sleep before 6 miles recovery tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment