Scotland 10K 2011
This morning I ran the NYRR Scotland 10K for the third year in a row.
The first time it was cold and raining, and I had food poisoning from
eating at the Macaroni Grill the night before. (The Giraffes had a team
dinner the night before and 40% of us got sick.) I ran that race at a
slower pace than the 15K race a few weeks prior.
Last year, the morning of the race was unseasonably hot and I was
dealing with an ITBS flare-up. I ran that one almost as slowly as the
previous year.
All of the other 10K's I've run were always sub-par compared to my 5K
and 15K times. I had never felt like I had a good 10K race. I always
felt like I let myself down; like I should be doing better.
Until today...
Today's Scotland 10K was the first time I had a good run at this
distance. When I set out this morning, my goal was a 6:56 pace, one
second per mile better than my PR. Central Park was a bit chilly at
about 52 degrees with an overcast sky.
My team made our plans for meeting afterward and we took our places in
the corrals. The gun went off and I started running. As soon as I
crossed the starting line I decided I wanted to see how fast I could do
this, how fast I could run a 10K. I wanted to see if I could break 40.
So I ran fast and hard, watching my pace a little too closely at times.
After the first mile I was warm and debating whether or not to take off
the arm warmers. I decided to wait until later in the race, as one side
of the park is usually warmer than the other. At about 2.5 miles I had
a weird cramping feeling in the ball of my right foot, but within a few
hundred meters the high kicked in and the pain went away. At the halfway
point I knew I'd be close to a 40 minute finish if I kept up the pace.
I kept up the pace until the last mile, then I sped up. I was close to
the goal. I was going to make it or die trying. Well, probably not die.
More likely vomit or pull a muscle or re-injure the IT-band. But not one
of those problems happened. What did happen was I crossed the finish
line less than 40 minutes from the time I crossed the starting line.
For the first time, I had felt good during and after a 10K. I ran the
race I wanted and the race I needed. I accomplished what I set out to do
and it felt awesome.
The official results posted a few hours later put me at 39:46, a
6:24/mile pace. This is a faster pace than my current 5 mile and 4 mile
PRs. I ran at a 67.5% AG performance rating and finished 318 of 8491.
I'm pretty pleased with myself...
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