Susan Alves 10K Report

Rickshaw · Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:18 pm

This morning was my last pre-marathon tune-up race, a 10K fund-raiser for a local high school. There were a little over 100 runners there, and about half were students and faculty from the school. Lots of fit-looking bodies.

I'd been looking forward to this race all week, and I felt really springy and energized yesterday, but for some reason today I felt flat. After a 2 mile warm-up, I was already tired. The start was a little manic, and within the first mile I could already feel myself flagging a bit. Unfortunately there were no mile markers on the course, so I had no idea of my pace, but I think I probably went out too fast and then slowed to compensate.

At the 5K turn-around, everyone around me turned back, and suddenly the race got really lonely. I could see another 10K runner way, way ahead, and nobody behind. I found it tough to keep a strong pace with nobody around me to chase or be chased by, and I felt like I slowed a lot, but I probably just pulled back to a more reasonable pace after a too fast first mile or two.

At the turn-around, I was in 6th place overall, about a minute behind 5th place and with 7th place nowhere in sight. I ran the long, lonely 3.1 mile return trip struggling to keep a strong pace and fight the fatigue. The race finished with a lap around the track, where I pushed the pace as much as I could, and finished in 42:53. That was a new 10K personal best, and good enough for 1st place in my age group. Of course there were only 4 people in my age group, and 26 in the 10K race, but let's not split hairs. :-) This was also my first 10K averaging under 7:00/mi pace. Woohoo!

So when are you disappointed with a PR and an age group win? When you're an over-analytical geek like me. Recent race times at other distances predicted a 10K time closer to 42:30 or 42:00 flat, so I was a little bummed I wasn't faster. If I'd paced it better and hadn't felt mysteriously tired at the start, maybe I would have been. Still, I'm pretty pleased with the result, and now I can look forward to two weeks of relative rest before Boston.