10k Race Recap

Heading over to the park I was wondering if this race was going to be a waste of time. The kids were up throughout the night. The baby woke up about the time I drifted off to sleep. I got her back to sleep about an hour later. Two hours later the three year old woke up and came into our room. Three hours after that the baby was up for another feeding. Got another hour or two of sleep before the alarm clock went off. Couple that with my poor nutrition Saturday night, I had a beer and ice cream cake while at a my cousin's birthday party. Oh, did I mention the frozen pizza and salad I ate for dinner? Needless to say, I was not going to set any records and I was questioning my ability to suck it up enough to finish.

I had half of a banana, some almonds and a cup of coffee for breakfast. I jogged over to the park, a mere 7 minute jog from my front door. Love living that close to the park. Got my number and headed toward the mid/back of the pack. The race included a 5k and 10k. The later being two loops of the course. I was going to try and start slow. I find it hard to find my pace at the beginning of a race especially when some are running shorter distance. First mile was a little faster than I anticipated, then I slowed down a little too much. Finding a pace and sticking with it does not come easily. There were 2 water stops. They also had a walk that started five minutes after the run started. Which worked out well until mile four when we caught up to the last of the walkers. There really was plenty of room though so I didn't have to waste too much energy going around them.

My splits were as follows:

1. 9:00
2. 10:16
3. 9:15
4. 9:44
5. 10:22
6. 8:56 The last 0.2 1:29

Total time for the 10k 59:05. I was happy with that. I was hoping to finish in about an hour so that was right where I wanted to be. And yes you read that right, 8:56 for the last mile. I looked at my watch at mile 5 and knew if I picked it up I could finish just shy of an hour.

Goals leading up to the half marathon in three weeks are:

Nutrition: I need to eat better and fuel better for my long runs.

Pacing: I need to maintain more even pace. I'm all over the place. Not sure how I'll go about that yet.