Run, Forrest, Run!
The weather ended up being favorable this morning (about mid-40s and partly cloudy), which helped things. Also saw one of my friends at the starting line, Chris, so it was fun to catch up with him before the gun went off. He's much faster so we didn't run together, but he hung around with some other friends (Jason and Char) to watch me finish. Entertaining for them, I am sure.
My general pace is about 10:30-10:45 minutes/mile (READ: slow). I figured out that with a 10 kilometer race coming in to about 6.3 miles, I should come in somewhere around 65 minutes. The course was a little hilly, but manageable, although one hill at around the start of mile 5 tested my determination a bit.
As I was running, I was more focused on my form (I tend to get shin splints so avoiding those were key) and my pace per mile as opposed to my total time. I was pretty shocked that when I crossed the finish line, my watch said 61 minutes at a pace of 9:50 minutes/mile. Of course, it would have been awesome to finish in under an hour but that gives me something to work towards.
I would be remiss if I didn't thank Marc for being awesome, per usual. He was a great cheerleader (no pom poms unfortunately) at the start, 3 mile mark and finish. Although when I gave him a high-five at the 3 mile point, he probably was upset that he had to touch my sweaty palm being the germophobe that he is. Seriously, he has been a huge support since I started training.
The other funny thing worth mentioning was that for pretty much the 1st half of the race, I was running next to a person wearing a 'Honey Bucket' t-shirt. Now *this* was something that I wanted to be thinking about while I was running. Finally I decided to pull ahead and pick up the pace.
Another big thanks to Coach Lesley for training me and keeping me focused on the big picture. I've blogged about her before on her Ironman adventures.
[Special thanks to Jason for snapping the pic.]