10K'S ARE HARD!

Can't remember the last time I ran a 10K (open, not in a tri) but I think it was 5 years ago. I ran the same race this year, although the course was a bit harder because the little draw bridge from 5 years ago was replaced with a monster bridge. So, I guess I should be happy that I ran faster this year than in 2001! You won't see my name in the results though because this is an annual bandit race - I like to say I just didn't get there early enough to register, sounds good. Anyway, leading up to this race, I have only been running 3-6 miles at a pop at around 8:30 pace for the most part, which is my aerobic pace right now. I didn't place myself up front at the start as I didn't have a race number on and didn't want to get lectured by the race management. This ended up being a real pain because when the gun went off, I was stuck behind a large group of joggers and had to meander around them for the first several minutes up the bridge. I finally was able to get in a good pace by the top of the bridge. My only goal for this race was to try and break 43 minutes. I don't know what I was basing this on, just sounded like a good number. Anyway, I had some pretty bad side stiches after the first couple miles which I was clicking off at 6:36/mile pace so had to slow down a bit. I ended up running about 41:40 which I was really pretty happy with. My average heart rate was 177 which was a solid tempo effort. I was happy with the fact that I competed well also. I ended up running the last mile or so with a couple of really fast girls and toughed it out pretty good. I was limited mostly cardiovascularly but my legs felt pretty good the whole way. It's a long way off my PR, but I'm pretty sure I won't be getting anymore run PR's! The next thing on the schedule is another 10K and a half marathon in January. Looking forward to these because it's nice to run hard every now and then during base phase which gets a little boring. Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!