First 10k race

It was a beautiful for a nice run

Yesterday I ran my very first 10k. I now have some data that I can use to figure out my progress. And progress it was indeed. We ran along Shore Road Park down in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and in the organizers' words (paraphrased) "we ran 3.1 miles this way, turned 180 degrees, and ran another 3.1 miles back." The route brought us to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (the bridge that connects Staten Island with Brooklyn), underneath it, and another half mile beyond it. I like landmarks like that because it shows you a) how short a mile can be by looking back and seeing how far the bridge is behind you already, and b) how long a mile can be by looking at the bridge in front of you wondering if you can make it there. I did make it back to the bridge, under it, and back to the finish line in 44:02 minutes, a pace of 7:06 minutes/mile, on 13th place (out of 122 finishers total), and 2nd in my age group of 40-49 (out of 17 finishers in that category). And again, no, no awards were given to anybody but the first finishers in each age group and the top three of the race. One day I will snatch
one up, one day. When I looked at the splits in Endomondo I also realized that I ran my best 5k in the first half of the race with a pace of 6:55 minutes/mile with a total of 21:26 minutes. That's a 20 seconds improvement over my last 5k. I think I can be proud of that achievement, too. My 10k finishing goal to cross the finish line under 45 minutes is already done. Next run I'll try a 6:45 pace for a finish time of under 42 minutes.

The Verrazano Bridge is about 3 miles away

When I came back home I published my results on the NY Flyers' web site and noticed that the guy in red shirt, who kept running in front of me all the time and was just a lot better at keeping a constant pace, was a fellow Flyer and he placed first in my age group. I then checked his racing history and he has been doing this for at least 12 years now and his first 10k times back in 2001 were around 55-57 minutes. That gives me hope that within the next 10 years I will finish first somehow somewhere. Another guy also in a red shirt (which you can actually see in the picture above - he's got PPTC written on his shirt, Prospect Park Track Club) placed third and was 45 seconds behind me.

I always hear that you usually run a lot faster than usual when you run a race. This is very true. It seems that a little bit of competition and probably a bit of the need to show off makes your legs go faster. Also see my more recent post why I always want to finish in the top 20%.

How did I train for this race? To be honest, I did not. After the 16 miles the previous Sunday and another 6 miles the day after my left knee was in pain. I did run 40 miles over 5 days that week and the golden rule is never to run more than 10% than the previous week(? month?) but, of course, I hardly heed such rules. Maybe I should. Anyway, I took the rest of the week off. Literally. I didn't run, I didn't ride the bike, nothing but walking. The first time I ran again after five days of rest was when I got out of the subway station in Brooklyn and ran the half mile to the start line for warm-up. While my knee still felt it could use another week of rest I noticed that the pain disappeared as soon as I started running. That's the way I like it.