This was the 7th race I’ve
run since arriving in Florida Jan 6. Most have been good races; a couple were mediocre. I guess I was overdue for a really
bad one.
It was a warm, humid day.....around 70
at race time. The course isn’t as flat as many races here in the Tampa Bay area. There are a few rolling hills. With
a 5k and a 10k from which to choose, I opted for the 10k.
I have had a cold this week. And, between
5 days of hosting visitors and a 3 day trip to Miami for a sailboat show, I haven’t run much in the past two weeks since
the Gasparilla 15k. Thursday, I ran for the first time in 6 days....7.5 slow, difficult miles. So, I didn’t expect much
in today’s race, but I didn’t expect it to be as bad as it turned out.
Last year under cooler and less humid conditions,
I set my current second-running-life PR of 50:32 in this race. I didn’t expect to match that this year. But I did expect
to at least run the same pace of 8:46/mile that I ran in the 15k two weeks ago. So, I set 54:30 as a floor goal. It really
doesn’t matter what my “realistic” and optimistic goals were....I didn’t even come close to the floor
goal.
I started at what felt like about 8:30
pace, but my first mile split was 8:52. Mile 2 split was 8:46. Then things quickly went downhill....both physically and mentally.
Midway through the 3rd mile, my legs felt very tired and heavy. And my mind began to scream at me, “Why didn’t
you choose the 5k, dummy?” I knew it was going to be a long race.
Miles 3-6 went by in 9:01, 9:22, 9:15 and
9:31. I did manage a bit of a finishing kick and ran the last .213 mile in 1:50 (8:36 pace). My final time was 56:37 net (56:45
clock time) for a 9:07 average pace was a full 6 minutes slower than last year. I ran positive 5k splits of 27:36 and 29:01.....a
lousy race performance.
This was the slowest 10k I have run in
almost 2 years.... and one of my worst race performances of any distance....ever. In the past two years, only my half marathons
and marathons have been at slower paces. In fact, my 1998 Philly Marathon was even faster paced than this race.
Looks like I have a lot of work to do.
I hope next week’s 10k goes better than today’s did. Maybe not having a cold next week will also help.
Jim2
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