This past weekend, I ran the Pecan Festival 10K. This is always a fun race for me. The past few years, I've run the 5K, but this year, I decided to do the 10. There haven't been many 10Ks lately, so I jumped at the chance. This course, which is traditionally one of the fastest, has not ever been that way for me. I haven't broken 20 minutes on it in the 5K (my PR is 18:56), so I wasn't expecting a super fast time, but I felt I could break my 10K PR (43:01) which I set about this time last year.
It got cold Friday night and was freezing Saturday morning. The race started at 9, and thankfully, by then, it wasn't raining. We got up and I ate breakfast (two scrambled eggs with toast and jelly) and then drove to the race. We got there at 8:52 and I still had to get my packet. Talk about getting there last minute! My warm up consisted of darting from the car (before Kevin parked) to the gym to get my packet and then running to find my husband so I could give him my bag. I stretched during the announcements.
I typically start out fast when I'm running 5Ks. I have a harder time building in a race if I don't start out fast than I do starting out fast. On Saturday though, I had a specific goal: break my PR, so I was careful not to start out running a sub-6 minute mile. I started around 6:30 and then slowed down to 6:40-50. The first two or three miles felt really good. The weather was great and I was even second-guessing my decision to wear two long sleeve shirts.
The course wound through some old neighborhoods and was relatively flat until about mile 4 where there were a few hills. My fourth and fifth miles were slower with the hills, but even when I looked at my Garmin at 4.2 miles in, I knew I was going to PR. At that point, I had somewhere around 15 minutes left to my PR. I decided not to push too hard because I didn't want to burn out (even though it was only a 10K) and I wanted to finish strong. My last mile was my fastest.
When I turned to head back to the finish and had about .2 miles left, I knew I was going to PR big time. I saw my husband standing on the corner taking pictures and yelled to him that I was PR'ing. When I rounded that corner, I saw 41 minutes on the clock and knew I could break 42 (not something I've ever done in a race - I was wanting to break 43 and would have been satisfied with a 42:50). This excitement caused me to raise my arms in the air and yell "I PR'ed" to the event timers who are also friends as I was going across the finish line.
And when you do things like that, pictures like these happen:
And then you get really embarrassed. Especially after someone tags you in them and you've warned everyone around you that has seen them not to tag you.
But it was fun. And I PR'ed (if you hadn't already figured that out!): 41:48!Labels: 10K, 2014 races, PR, races
