Sunday, September 21, 2008

Yellow Jacket 10K - Every Second Counts!




Today I ran in my 2nd 10k race - the Yellow Jacket 10K. My last 10K was 5 months ago and I ran it in 1:01:47 so I thought that I could break that hour mark now. I REALLY wanted to break that barrier of running 6 miles in under an hour. I have never done it before. I have been telling everyone about how I was going to try my hardest to run this race in under an hour so the pressure was on!

I got a really good night's sleep and even woke up before my alarm this morning. I drank some Gatorade and ate a banana and was out the door at 6:30am. I got to the football field and registered for the race, got my T-shirt, and chatted with some ladies that I knew. It looked like everyone was running the 10K (there was also a 5K) and there were a lot of women for some reason.

Right at 7:30, we were off and I started off way faster than I thought possible and way faster than I should have. That first mile was 9:01 (I do not run that fast!) and the later miles were way slower than that! In order to run the 10K in under an hour, I had to keep my pace at 9:39 so I set the Garmin to beep at me when my pace went slower. It beeped at me a lot! I just could not keep that pace up for some reason! The first half was pretty much uphill, not a huge uphill, but enough of one that I was feeling it! I was SO thankful to get to the halfway point so I could turn around and start going more downhill! I felt way better the 2nd half of the race, but by then, I was pretty tired from the first half! When I could see the football field, I looked down at I was at 57:30 so I knew I would be close, but I didn't think I was going to get it. I started going the wrong way on the track, oops, and had to turn around and go around the track the other way. I heard Chris, the kids, my sisters, and some friends cheering me on so I just kept on truckin' and hoped that I would be close. And close I was - I crossed the finish line in 59:59!!!! Wow!!!! Most everyone there knew that I wanted to run it in under an hour so they were going crazy laughing and asking if I could have cut it any closer! I ended up in 16th place (probably out of 30 or so) and there were 5 people in my age group - I know I wasn't 5th so I was either 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th! I'll let you know when the final results come out! I really don't think I could have run that race any faster today, but I will keep trying to improve that time. Here is how my miles looked -

Mile 1 - 9:01 - Way too fast for me!! Slow it down!
Mile 2 - 9:46 - 7 seconds too slow for my under hour pace
Mile 3 - 9:50 - A lot of uphill - way too slow!!!
Mile 4 - 9:37 - Perfect Pace
Mile 5 - 9:30 - Now I'm crusin' - Feeling good!
Mile 6 - 9:46 - A little too slow, but I'm getting tired!
Mile 6.29 - 2:36 - Not sure if the course was a little long or the Garmin was a little off!!

What's really strange is that my average miles were 9:33, which is exactly what they were at my half marathon in August and that was 7 miles longer!!! I think I really need to practice my hill running - I'm way too slow on them and they tire me out big time!

Overall, I had a good time - I feel really great now; not sore or tired or anything, but half marathons are still my favorite racing distance! :) There is just too much pressure when I am running 5Ks and 10Ks!

Here is the video that Chris took of me at the finish! Enjoy!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyYSVp6CqOg

1 comment:

Mindy B said...

I'm so proud of you!